New NRCC ad in the 23rd: Pelosi springs eternal

The National Republican Congressional Committee’s new ad in the 23rd CD continues to push the issue that’s so far defining the race: Who’s likely to become a bigger friend of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — Republican Dede Scozzafava or Democrat Bill Owens?

Although the Club for Growth, which is supporting Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, has insisted that Scozzafava would be Pelosi’s favorite Republican, the NRCC spot suggests that Owens’ is better suited to be Pelosi’s newest boon companion.

Here’s the script:

Nancy Pelosi’s at it again. Her team’s attacking Dede Scozzafava — but it’s a lie. Truth is, Dede Scozzafava opposed Gov. Paterson’s tax increases, opposed his spending. Bill Owens? Owens is on Paterson’s team. Owens’ financial backing helped put the Spitzer-Paterson administration in office. Now Bill Owens wants to help Nancy Pelosi raise your income taxes. Bill Owens in Congress? He’ll make the problem worse.

As Liz Benjamin noted in her analysis, the script attempts a neat two-step: The reference to Team Pelosi’s attack is accompanied by a snippet from an earlier Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad slamming Scozzafava as a typical Albany politician with 190 votes to increase taxes on her Assembly record. (That’s a standard technique to use against any legislator with a voting record that includes yea votes on annual budgets: Read Irene’s analysis of Republican candidate Jim Buhrmaster’s “Taxin’ Tonko” ad from last fall.) The same ad brought up the charge that Scozzafava was partly culpable for tax problems confronting her brother’s company, Seaway Valley Capital Corp.

But the NRCC ad’s next line (”Truth is, Dede Scozzafava opposed Gov. Paterson’s tax increases, opposed his spending”) only makes logical sense as a retort to the Club for Growth’s equally slippery assertion that Scozzafava backed “last year’s huge Paterson tax-and-spend budget” — a clear effort to muddy the difference between last year’s budget and this year’s much more unpopular one — which Scozzafava voted against.

NRCC spokesman Paul Lindsay says the “lie” referred to in the script applies to the DCCC’s attacks on Scozzafava’s Assembly votes and the Seaway matter, not the Club for Growth’s charge.

The line about Owens’ “financial backing” of Spitzer/Paterson refers to Owens’ donation of $250 to Spitzer 2006 — not exactly a Howard-Hughes-for-Richard-Nixon expression of support, but still.

State Board of Election records, however, reveal Owens donated $500 to Friends of Pataki in 2002 — meaning Owens gave twice as much cash to a Republican gubernatorial candidate.

For Owens’ sake, let’s hope that doesn’t get back to Nancy Pelosi.