March 18, 2015 02:06 PM UTC

Ad Praises Gardner For Not "Cutting Medicare"--Not Yet, Not Anymore, We're Not Entirely Sure

• 6 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Subscribers to the Denver Post found this half-page ad waiting for them on page A8 today:

As you can see, this ad is thanking Sen. Cory Gardner for “protecting seniors from additional Medicare funding cuts.” Now, given Gardner’s long history of votes to cut and/or privatize Medicare (see: Ryan budget), this might come as a bit of a surprise to you–and frankly, it did to us as well. It’s possible that this is a reference to the Senate GOP’s latest budget proposal out this week, which doesn’t cut Medicare quite as much as the competing budget proposal from the Republican-controlled House. The ad does say additional Medicare cuts, after all, so we’re probably not talking about the money saved from Medicare’s smaller future growth as a result of the Affordable Care Act–frequently misrepresented by the GOP as “Medicare cuts.” Perhaps this is about thanking the Republican Senate to spite the Republican House? We invite additional theories.

Most likely, however, is that this thank-you ad from the “Alliance for Patient Access” is meaningless partisan pablum. That likelihood is probably most evident reading the bio of the director of the organization, Brian Kennedy. The Alliance for Patient Access’ address is the same as Kennedy’s GOP-aligned Washington D.C. PR firm, Woodberry Associates. “Woodberry Associates designs, implements and  manages grassroots advocacy campaigns” on behalf of “corporate and non-profit clients.”

Over the course of his career, Mr. Kennedy has served as the organizer, manager and/or a strategic consultant to over a dozen coalitions and associations and presently serves as Director of the Alliance for Patient Access.  He has served on the national political staff of two Republican presidential campaigns and is a past Executive Director of the Republican Governors Association. Mr. Kennedy served as Chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, as a member of the Republican National Committee and as Co-Chairman of the 1996 Republican National Platform Committee.  He has also served as a campaign manager to Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, and political advisor to United States Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, United States Senators Lamar Alexander, John McCain and Elizabeth Dole and Governor Mitt Romney.

Clearly, this is a man who runs expensive newspaper thank-you ads without any partisan considerations! And what exactly is a “grassroots campaign” operated “on behalf of corporate clients?” Because that seems like an oxymoron.

And with that, we realize we’ve spent way too much time analyzing this rather obvious sham.