NRCC launches ad campaign against Chet Edwards

The National Republican Congressional Committee launched a negative TV campaign today against one of the perennial thorns in its side – Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco.

The group, which is dedicated to grooming House candidates, has long sought a Republican in Edwards’ conservative central Texas district, and it supports GOP challenger Bill Flores of Bryan.

Now it is targeting Edwards for House Democrats’ failure to pass a budget this year.

“By failing to write a budget and ignoring the demands of Americans who are pleading for fiscal responsibility in Washington, Chet Edwards has effectively written his own political obituary,” said NRCC spokesman Ken Spain.

The ad features Edwards, a member of the House Budget Committee, against a black background, and it uses photo distortion to make the congressman look almost ghost-like.

A narrator says, “If you could create a long-term plan to reduce the deficit, grow the economy, and create jobs, would you? Chet Edwards won’t.”

The Edwards campaign dismissed the ad, which will run in the district, as “not credible” and “hypocritical.” Edwards’ staff said the NRCC advertising buy was about $7,000 and only $556 in the Dallas market.

“It is paid for by Washington, D.C. partisans whose budgets turned the largest surpluses in American history into the largest deficits ever,” said Edwards spokeswoman Megan Jacobs. “Perhaps that is why they only spent $7,000 for this ad, which is not a serious buy by anyone’s standards.”

Jacobs also touted Edwards as a leader in implementing pay-as-you-go budget rules and added that a GOP-majority House failed to pass a final budget approved by both the House and Senate in 1998, 2002, 2004 and 2006.

But Republicans have blasted Democrats on the issue ever since it was announced that the House would not pass a budget for the first time since new budget rules went into effect in 1976. The GOP leadership – which includes NRCC chairman and Dallas Rep. Pete Sessions – has been especially vocal in its criticism.

House Democrats pushed through a one-year budget resolution last week that will lower spending in the short-term. Democrats say they want to wait on the results of a presidential fiscal commission before voting on a longer-term budget.

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