NDN Airs Radio Ads Attacking GOP on Immigration

NDN (formerly known as the New Democrat Network), one of the biggest players in Hispanic outreach within the Democratic Party community, has launched a new radio attacking the Republican Congress on the issue of immigration. This follows attack ads on the radio waves in the southwest by the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee on this issue (see my previous posts on these ads).

I listened to the new NDN radio ad and it's in the style of a couple of the other ads NDN's agency, Elevacion, has produced in the past. That style is an original, poetic song of sorts. A male actor says, in Spanish, among things:

"Now they quiver out of fear,
Those brave Republicans,
Looking to lay the blame on others
Insisting they have been misunderstood
Who are they kidding?
Show some dignity and respect!"

In an e-mail to supporters this morning, NDN's president Simon Rosenberg wrote: "For those of us supporting the bi-partisan McCain-Kennedy bill it has become clear in recent months that the Republican leadership in Washington is more serious about scoring political points then they are about solving this important national challenge. And that's why NDN has launched a new issue advocacy campaign encouraging the Republican leadership - who control the government of the United States - to stop playing games with people's lives and get serious about passing McCain-Kennedy this year."

Rosenberg writes: "The new ad, "How Little They Know Us", begins running today on Spanish language radio stations in Arizona, California (Los Angeles and San Francisco), Nevada, Texas and Washington, DC."

Simon Rosenberg told me the budget will be in the "tens of thousands" of dollars and that the run will be "weeks." He also told me: "Our goal is to encourage the Republicans to stop playing games and to come to the table and help pass McCain-Kennedy."

Click [here] for information on the ad from the NDN website.

Click [here] for a recent article from The Hill about NDN's broader Hispanic strategy.

Meanwhile, President Bush's director of the Small Business Administration, Hector Barreto, is leaving to become national chairman of The Latino Coalition, an organization with deep ties to the Republican Party and the Bush White House that continues to refer to itself as "non-partisan" and a policy organization though it has sponsored partisan political advertising in the past. I think Barreto is likely to help boost the image and fundraising of this organization.