The Center for Public Integrity

Americans for Job Security, a conservative nonprofit organized as a trade association, reported that its ad “Running” cost $8.2 million, a significant figure considering the group’s total take in its 2010 fiscal year was $12 million, according to its most recent tax filing.

“Running,” released Wednesday, is the group’s first reported presidential ad of the election. It shows a mother jogging down the street as she says in the voiceover that she’s “running to forget” the bad economy, her husband’s layoffs and the national debt.

“The future is getting worse under (President Barack) Obama,” she says.

The ad is airing in six swing states.

Americans for Job Security is run by president Stephen Demaura, the former director of the New Hampshire State Republican Committee, out of an Alexandria, Va., office shared with the Republican media buying firm Crossroads Media, the Los Angeles Times discovered.

Crossroads Media was co-founded by former Americans for Job Security president Michael Dubke. Dubke is also a partner at Black Rock Consultancy, a GOP consultancy he co-founded with Carl Forti, the political director of super PAC American Crossroads and nonprofit Crossroads GPS.

A new ad from a veterans’ outside spending group and a major Democratic super PAC accuses Arizona Republican Rep. Jeff Flake of failing to support members of the armed services.

“Congressman Flake voted to send us to that war,” says Steven Lopez, an Iraq war veteran, in the new ad, “and then voted against us when we returned home.”

Flake and former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, a Democrat, are facing off to replace retiring Republican Sen. John Kyl in an increasingly competitive race.

“Uniform” from VoteVets Action Fund, a nonprofit, and Majority PAC draws attention to Flake’s vote against the 2008 GI Bill, which expanded benefits to Iraq war veterans. The bill, now law, provides tuition to public universities for qualified veterans, among other provisions.

The ad launches today and will air for one week at a cost of $280,000, according to a press release.

Flake’s campaign is fighting back. On Tuesday, responding to similar claims made by the Carmona campaign, posted a statement from Republican Sen. John McCain, a Vietnam War veteran and former POW, calling the line of attack “false and negative.” The statement is accompanied by a list of veterans’ bills the congressman did vote for.

Americans for Prosperity, a conservative nonprofit funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, launched a new issue advocacy campaign criticizing President Barack Obama Monday.

The organization reported spending $205,000 on radio ads highlighting what the group calls Obama’s “failing agenda.”

The buy will ramp up to $1.3 million, according a press release, with radio ads and calls to voters targeting 13 states. The campaign is coupled with a national bus tour.

Issue ads can name a candidate but do not expressly advocate a yes or no vote. They must be reported to the Federal Election Commission as “electioneering communications” if, as with the new Americans for Prosperity spots, they come within 60 days of a general election.

Issue advertising all but disappeared when a federal district court required donors to the campaigns be identified. An appeals court, however, recently suspended that decision. Issue ads, unlike “express advocacy” ads can be interpreted as educational and not subject to IRS limits on political activity.

Americans for Prosperity, known for being financed by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch, is one of the top outside spenders in the election.

Republican Rep. Rick Berg, of North Dakota, once the favorite to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad, has found himself in a tight race, and spending by outside groups is flowing.

Berg faces former state Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat.

The Republican congressman absorbs a one-two punch today in ads from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Patriot Majority USA.

Patriot Majority USA, a liberal nonprofit, released “More Proof,” which features the AARP’s criticisms of the Medicare plan Berg supports — Rep. Paul Ryan’s “premium support” plan in which the government gives seniors a set amount of money to buy private insurance.

The DSCC’s “No Change” also focuses on Medicare. It says that while Berg promised that those who are already 55 and older will not see a change in their health care costs, that claim is “absolutely not true,” according to the ad.

Ryan’s budget plan reopens the Medicare Part D “doughnut hole” for prescription drugs — a range of costs in which seniors are responsible for paying for all their medications out-of-pocket, Factcheck.org says.

North Dakota, a state that The New York Times predicted as “Berg’s to lose,”  is solidly Republican when it comes to presidential voting, but the Senate seat has been held by a Democrat since 1960.

The National Association of Realtors, a major outside spender in the election, reported $500,000 in television ads supporting Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., in his quest to be elected in California’s 30th District.

Sherman faces a challenge from another incumbent Democrat, Rep. Howard Berman, thanks to redistricting and California’s top-two primary system. That new system pitted all candidates — regardless of party affiliation — against each other during the June primary, with the top two vote-getters moving onto the general election.

Friday’s $500,000 investment came from the National Association of Realtors’ traditional political action commitee, though the group also has a super PAC called the National Association of Realtors Congressional Fund.

The National Association of Realtors is the primary trade group representing realtors and is also a powerful lobbying group. In 2011, it spent more than $22 million on lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. This election cycle, the PAC has spent $1.2 million on independent campaign expenditures, and the super PAC has spent $2.5 million. This makes the Realtors’ outside spending comparable to the National Rifle Association.

After two bruising years for organized labor in the Midwest, the movement has managed to land two pro-union measures on the November ballot in Michigan.

Michigan locals and their national leaders now face an ad campaign by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and its friends, urging voters to resist “D.C. union bosses.” Unions, however, have far outraised their detractors, bringing in a quarter of the $30 million total raised for the state’s six ballot initiatives, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

Labor wants to repeal Gov. Rick Snyder’s landmark emergency manager law, which has been a bane to public sector unions, and to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the state constitution to stave off future attacks.

Efforts to curtail union rights “really did spike” since the GOP swept into power in 20 more state legislative houses in 2010, said Jeanne Mejeur, labor expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures. “Last year we saw about 950 [labor-related] bills nationwide, compared to about 100 a year over the last 10 years.”

What happens in Michigan may be an even greater measure of the labor movement’s influence than its unsuccessful attempt to remove union-busting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker from office earlier this year.

“The eyes of the nation will be on Michigan in November,” said Chris Fleming, a national spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Washington, D.C. “If there’s a chance to enshrine collective bargaining in any state, we will be there to support it.”

Unions in the region, a traditional stronghold, can use the help. In just two years, labor has been battered by the failed recall effort in Wisconsin and an anti-union right-to-work law in Indiana.

Democratic super PACs have begun to make up ground in the political arms race, raising substantially more in August than they did during the previous month, new filings with the Federal Election Commission show.

For much of the 2012 election cycle, Democratic super PACs have been outraised their GOP rivals. The groups, made possible in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, are allowed to collect contributions of unlimited size from individuals, unions and companies — so long as the funds are spent on advertisements that are not coordinated with any candidate.

Priorities USA Action, the primary super PAC supporting the re-election of President Barack Obama, took in $10.1 million through the end of August. That’s up from just $4.8 million in July. While the group finished August with $4.8 million cash on hand, during the first three weeks of September, it reported spending more than $7.8 million — suggesting that the cash has continued to come in.

Top donors to Priorities USA Action in August included James Simons, founder of the hedge fund giant Renaissance Technologies, who gave $2 million; Anne Cox Chambers, the owner of Cox Enterprises, who gave $1 million; and attorney Steve Mostyn, who also gave $1 million. The majority owner of the Baltimore Orioles, Peter Angelos, also gave big, contributing $500,000 in his first ever donation to the pro-Obama group.

Conservative nonprofit Let Freedom Ring attempts to link President Barack Obama to child soldiers in a new ad focusing on the United States’ military aid to certain countries in Africa and the Middle East.

The ad opens with brief background on child soldiers and notes that Sen. Obama supported a bill that restricted American aid to countries that use child soldiers in militaries and state-backed militias.

“This was the right thing to do. It’s what leaders do,” the narrator says. “But then, as president, Obama waived these restrictions, allowing millions of our taxpayer dollars to go to countries where children as young as 11 — 11! — are forced to fight.”

“Why, Mr. President? Why?” the ad finishes.

In 2011, Obama waived restrictions on military aid to countries that the U.S. has identified as using child soldiers, despite the 2008 Child Soldiers Protection Act that he, as senator, supported.

The states that received waivers — Sudan, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Yemen — were considered key to American national security interests. Burma and Somalia, the other two countries identified in a 2010 State Department report as using child soldiers, were not granted waivers, the Christian Science Monitor reported.

The move sparked controversy not only because it appeared that the Obama administration was overlooking human rights abuses, but also because it sidestepped Congress’ authority and appeared to not adequately consult human rights activists, Foreign Policy reported.

Crossroads GPS, a conservative nonprofit outside spending group, began a $2.3 million ad campaign Wednesday, including the Crossroads network’s first reported foray into congressional races and ads in four hotly contested Senate races. With its entry into the House race, Crossroads is now active at all levels of the national election.

This campaign is part of a larger $10 million-plus offensive from Republican strategist Karl Rove’s Crossroads network that began this week. Super PAC American Crossroads just announced an $8.8 million campaign targeting President Barack Obama.

Crossroads GPS’ ads target Senate races in Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Wisconsin as well as New York’s 1st Congressional District, where Republicans have become adamant about ousting Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop: