Reid Pressured on Public Option in Liberal Group’s New Ad

ABC News’ Teddy Davis reports:

A liberal group called the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) is launching a new television ad in Nevada pressuring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to back a government insurance option as part of comprehensive health-care reform.

The ad features Nevada nurse Lee Slaughter. She says in the ad that she has seen insurance companies cut off care to patients in need — and says that in 2010, she will vote on only one issue: “I’m watching to see if Harry Reid is strong and effective enough as a leader to pass a public option into law.”

Watch it HERE.

The PCCC is the same organization which joined Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., last week in delivering nearly 90,000 petition signatures to Reid’s office telling him to strip Democratic senators of plum committee assignments if they join a Republican filibuster on health care.

Reid’s office did not take too kindly to the petition.

“The only thing Senator Reid is worried about right now is putting together a bill that can get the 60 votes necessary to overcome a Republican filibuster,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley told the Washington Post last week. “He has no intention of stopping by” to receive the petition.

In its push for a public option, PCCC is taking advantage of the fact that Reid finds himself in a tough fight for re-election.

Last week, the Senate Majority Leader launched two television ads in Nevada more than a year before he faces the voters.

Republicans have not yet settled on a nominee against Reid.

Top GOP contendersinclude Sue Lowden, a former head of the state GOP who was the second runner-up for Miss America in 1973, Danny Tarkanian, the son of legendary UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, and John Chachas, a wealthy investment banker.

The ad pressuring Reid on the public option was filmed over the weekend and will start airing Wednesday in the Las Vegas media market on both broadcast and cable.

PCCC, which has touted the ad in an email to 225,000 members, is setting an initial online fundraising goal of $100,000.

ABC News’ Rick Klein contributed to this report.

Peace Group: If Obama Deserves Prize He Will Stop ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan

ABC News' Teddy Davis reports:

Peace Action, a liberal anti-war group, has issued a statement saying that if President Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize he will stop the “surge” in Afghanistan.

“It is ironic that this award comes on the same day that the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the administration is considering sending as many as 60,000 more troops to Afghanistan,” said Peace Action's executive director Kevin Martin.

“President Obama needs to prove that he really is a force for peace. He can do that by refusing to put more troops in Afghanistan, and instead committing to a non-military solution that doesn't destabilize a nuclear-armed Pakistan like a surge would,” the statement continues.

The group adds that the president is moving in the right direction on
nuclear disarmament but hasn't done “nearly enough” yet to warrant a Nobel Prize.

While Obama is being criticized by Peace Action on theleft, he is also being pummeled from the right.

“This little man child who has not done diddly squat,” said Rush Limbaugh on hisFriday radio show. “He knows exactly why he was given this award … man of peace not to … take on Iran!”

ABC News' Steve Portnoy contributed to this report.

Conservative Group Attacks Vacationing Obama

ABC News? Rick Klein reports: A leading conservative group that?s opposing President Obama?s health care plan is meeting the Obama family at the beach.

Conservatives for Patients Rights is launching a new ad that will air on television in Boston and on Martha?s Vineyard next week, tweaking the president for taking time away from Washington in the middle of the national debate over health care.

?The beach is nice this time of year. But while President Obama vacations, concerns mount about his health care plan,? the voice-over says, according to a copy of the ad provided to ABC News. ?Mr. President — when you go back to DC, drop your government-run public option plan. Let?s get on with real reform to lower costs, and protect patients? rights.?

The ad says Obama?s plans ?could lead to government-run health care? and ?lead to higher taxes on everything from paychecks to soda,? and would ?add a trillion to the deficit.?

An official associated with the conservative group said more than $150,000 will be spent on the ads, bringing the group?s total ad spending in opposition to the president?s plans above $4.5 million.

The ads are only set to run while the president vacations with his family on Martha?s Vineyard. The official added that the ads will run on New England Sports Network while the Boston Red Sox play a four-game series against the Chicago White Sox — the president?s favorite team.

Watch the full ad here:

GOP Group: N.Y. House Candidate Backs ‘Radical Agenda’

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: National money is set to flow into the tightening race for an upstate New York House seat, with an outside group set to make a major TV purchase to seek to boost the prospects of Republican Jim Tedisco.

The ad — funded by the National Republican Trust, which is set to drop $200,000 into the race in the next two weeks — attacks Democratic candidate Scott Murphy’s record on jobs, according to a copy of the ad obtained by ABC News.

“Scott Murphy bragged he created thousands of jobs — but just not here in New York. He created jobs in India,” the ad says, picking up on a theme being hammered by the National Republican Campaign Committee.

As a possible window into 2010 GOP messaging, the ad goes on to say that Murphy will support a “radical agenda,” tying him to the fiscal woes in Washington. The ad, however, does not mention President Obama.

“Now he’s promised to back a radical agenda — trillions in wasteful spending, job killing taxes, crushing debt,” the ad says.

The campaign for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s old House seat is considered a prime pick-up opportunity for Republicans. A Siena College poll released this week showed the race tightening in advance of the March 31 special election.

News of the buy from the National Republican Trust comes in the wake of Tedisco’s statement attempting to distance himself from the NRCC.

“I’m taking over and we’re going to run a campaign that relates to the people of the 20th Congressional District,” Tedisco told the Glen Falls Post-Star.

Liberal Group Targets Limbaugh in 2nd TV Ad

ABC News’ Teddy Davis reports:

The liberal group, Americans United for Change, has released its second television ad attempting to paint conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh as the real leader of the Republican Party.

Watch the ad here.

The television ad says that it’s Limbaugh — not Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, or Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell — who was hailed at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference as the GOP’s hero.

The Democratic strategists behind the Limbaugh line-of-attack want every Republican official in the country to either “endorses or renounce” Limbaugh on the question of whether they want President Barack Obama to fail.

Limbaugh’s response is that he wants Obama to fail if the president’s goal is to “restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundations.”

Obama Grassroots Group Holds DC Fundraiser

ABC News’ Rick Klein Reports: There will be, as President Obama reminded us this week, “ample time for campaigns down the road.”

But for the Democratic National Committee and Organizing For America — the offshoot of the Obama campaign, and the main entity of what’s referred to as “Obama 2.0” — the campaign continues. At least the money side, that is.

Organizing For America — which is being run through the DNC — tonight is holding its first fundraiser since the president took office, at Lima Restaurant and Lounge in Washington.

It’s billed as a “grassroots” fundraiser, so a ticket costs only $44. To get access to the open bar and “special guests,” the price tag for a VIP ticket is $250.

Alas, those special guests don’t include the president himself. They are actress Laura Breckenridge, from “Gossip Girl”; Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo..; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.; and Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y.