Ahh, Freedom's Watch. Not long ago, they were supposed to be the New New Shiny Thing in conservative advocacy groups. Funded by Sheldon Adelson, fronted by Ari Fleischer, and with deep connections to organizations like the American Enterprise Institute, they were some war-lovin' fools that were going to blanket the airwaves with issue ads and be total Game Changers. Now, sadly, the group has fallen on hard times, along with Adelson, who, according to reports saw his "net worth had [fallen] by more than $16.6 billion for the year."
Karen Tumulty has a piece on Freedom's Watch that captures their legacy pretty perfectly, as an organization who assaulted America with senses-dulling advertisements that employed a combination of really hamhanded jokes and illiteracy to fully fail to convince wide swaths of Americans. One cited example includes this terrible ad copy, which failed to prevent Democrat Dina Titus from winning her race in Nevada's 3rd District:
One memorable spot featured surgeons hunched over an operating table, exchanging the following dialogue:
"Oh my."
"Colitis?"
"No."
"Hepatitis?"
"No."
"Diverticulitis?"
"No, I'm afraid it's Dinatitus! Taxes up the yin-yang!"
Oh, such hilarity! Of course, our personal favorite ad from the organization's repertoire was deployed back in May. Nancy Pelosi had made an appearance on Larry King Live, pointing out how much the price of gas had gone up on Bush's watch:
Pelosi noted the deleterious effects that Bush White House policy has had on prices at the pumps. But, during the conversation, Pelosi briefly misspoke and said that the cost of gas was "almost three times what it was when Bush took office...it was a dollar something when he took office, now it's $2.56 on average."
So, Pelosi either miscalculated or misstated her calculation. Well Freedom's Watch was het up to nail Pelosi for this picayune mistake, so they cut an ad featuring footage of gas station price boards with the actual price of gas. The problem was, those prices painted Bush in an even worse light.
So, anyway, that's Freedom's Watch, proving once again that with great incompetence comes sporadic outpourings of pity.