Tracking the Trade Issue in 2008 Election Ads

More than eighty campaigns across the country, from both sides of the isle, are running on a platform of trade reform in 2008. It’s become one of the top polling issues this cycle, with more than one hundred twenty separate ads hitting the airwaves.

Click here to Presidential Trade Ads
Click Here to See Senate Trade Ads
Click Here to see House Trade Ads

(Because of the volume of new trade ads going up, we stopped posting on 10/29/08.)

Some of the Best
*Eric Massa – “40,000 lost jobs under Bush’s trade policies”
New York Congressional
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLhaLZHqKeU

*Jeff Merkley – “They call it free trade, but there’s nothing free about it”
Oregon Senate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSeX2Rgnsik

*DSCC – Opponent “backs tax breaks for American companies that ship jobs overseas” and supports “bad trade deals like NAFTA, Central America and China that send tens of thousand of jobs overseas”, while “Ronnie Musgrove opposes these job killers, and will fight to keep jobs in the state”
Mississippi Senate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBZ1ucE9o6g<

*DCCC ad for Kathy Dahlkemper against Phil English – “NAFTA cost Pennsylvania 40,000 jobs” while English “voted to expand NAFTA, costing us more jobs”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQx_omlrejs

*State Race: Ben Westlund – Opponent “says he created jobs in Oregon, but really he outsourced jobs to China while paying himself millions of dollars.”
Oregon State Treasurer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvbqrd4biu0&eurl=http://allenalley.typepad.com/

Flashback: Two Dozen Winning Trade Campaign Ads from 2006
Senate ads:
Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), 1 ad
Sherrod Brown (Ohio), 7 ads
Bob Casey (Pa.), 4 ads
Bernie Sanders (Vt.), 1 ad

House ads:
John Barrow (Ga.), 2 ads
Bruce Braley (Iowa), 1 ad
DCCC for Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), 1 ad
John Yarmuth (Ky.), 1 ad
Ken Lucas (Ky.), 1 ad
Jack Davis (N.Y.), 1 ad
Heath Shuler (N.C.), 2 ads
Zack Space (Ohio), 1 ad
Lois Murphy (Pa.), 1 ad

Full transcripts and video can be found at:
http://www.citizen.org/trade/articles.cfm?ID=15892
Candidates are Running on Trade Reform