The Center for Public Integrity

Planned Parenthood this week began its most extensive attack this election on Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, spending $1.8 million on a new television ad that’s part of a $3.2 million initiative.

The ad, called “Mitt Romney Would Turn Back the Clock on Women’s Health,” began airing in northern Virginia this week and is set to run throughout Virginia and Ohio in the coming weeks, according to a press release.

The ad buy comes via Planned Parenthood Votes, a super PAC that is allowed to accept contributions of unlimited size from individuals, unions and corporations. Planned Parenthood has also made campaign expenditures through its nonprofit, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which is not required to reveal its donors, as well as a handful of local affiliates.

The new ad shows clips of Romney saying he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, which protects a woman’s right to an abortion, as well as saying, “Planned Parenthood — we’re going to get rid of that.”

Women “should be making our personal medical decisions —not Mitt Romney,” the narrator says as the clips of Romney are played in black and white on a 1950s-era television.

Part of Romney’s plan to reduce government spending is to eliminate Title X funding, which provides government support for family planning services like Planned Parenthood.

A new super PAC, backed by a $500,000 contribution from a wealthy hedge fund manager, is aiming to knock off a Long Island congressman who doesn’t share the big donor’s views on reform of the finance industry.

Conservative super PAC Prosperity First is bankrolled by wealthy hedge fund CEO Robert Mercer, whose firm has lobbied against the Dodd-Frank financial reform law passed in the wake of the 2008 collapse of the banking and real estate industries.

Super PACs — which were made possible by the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision — have played pivotal roles in high-profile national and statewide races, but have the potential to make a far greater impact on House contests.

“Outside spending can certainly have more impact in House races than in Senate or presidential contests,” said Viveca Novak, communications director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. “It takes less money to make an impression.”

Congressional districts are smaller, and candidates don’t collect anywhere near the amounts seen in statewide and nationwide elections, she added.

Prosperity First wants to oust Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop, whose 1st Congressional District is located in eastern Long Island. According to Federal Election Commission records, in less than a week, the super PAC has spent more than $294,000 on ads supporting wealthy Republican businessman Randy Altschuler and opposing Bishop.

Super donor Mercer, co-CEO of hedge fund giant Renaissance Technologies, gave Prosperity First $500,000 in April, accounting for nearly 80 percent of the $635,500 raised through June, according to the group's most recent filing. Mercer made the contribution three days after Prosperity First was founded.

The anonymously funded Crossroads GPS released four new ads on Tuesday going after Senate seats in Nevada, Ohio and Virginia with ad buys worth $2.5 million, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

"Laughable," in Nevada, calls Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley “desperate.” Berkley is trying to unseat Republican Sen. Dean Heller, who was appointed to replace disgraced former Sen. John Ensign. Republicans are hoping an ethics probe exploring whether some of Berkley’s legislative actions benefited her physician-husband’s business could spoil her chances.

The ad focuses on Berkley’s support of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act., proposes $716 billion in cuts. Democrats, backed by Politifact, point out that Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan also cuts $700 billion. The difference is in where the savings come from, the Daily Disclosure reported on Sept. 5.

An FEC report shows the anti-Berkley ad cost $425,000.

In Ohio, a football-themed ad attacking Sen. Sherrod Brown says “Ohio just can’t compete while Brown is calling the plays.” Brown is challenged by state treasurer Josh Mandel, whose campaign has been buoyed by outside spending from fiscally conservative groups like Crossroads GPS and Club for Growth.

Super PAC Prosperity First, which is bankrolled by wealthy hedge fund CEO Robert Mercer, is attempting to oust Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop in New York’s 1st Congressional District. In less than a week, the super PAC has spent more than $294,000 on ads.

Prosperity First reported its first buy to the tune of $273,000 on Friday, followed by an additional $21,000 on Monday, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

The ads support Randy Altschuler, a wealthy Republican businessman running for Congress against Bishop in Mercer’s home district of eastern Long Island.

Altschuler and Bishop first went head-to-head in 2010 in one of the tightest races in the country. Both campaigns challenged the results, and three weeks after the election, just 16 votes separated the candidates, The Hill reported. Eventually, Altschuler, who funded his own campaign, conceded. The final tally gave Bishop a margin of victory of less than 600 votes in a race where about 200,000 votes were cast.

New York’s 1st District is considered a tossup again this year, but Bishop may receive a bump from increased Democratic turnout for the presidential election.

The YG Action Fund, a super PAC associated with the conservative “Young Guns” movement led by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan, reported spending nearly $2 million on ads in three Democrat-held congressional districts.

While the Young Guns is associated with the National Republican Congressional Committee, YG Action Fund is independently managed and independently financially backed, with support coming from super donor Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam, who gave it $5 million in April, and by a handful of smaller donors, including Cantor’s leadership PAC, Every Republican Is Crucial (ERICPAC).

The new ads oppose Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., Maj. Gen. Bill Enyart, the Democrat running in Illinois’ 12th District, and Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass.

McIntrye faces Republican state Sen. David Rouzer in North Carolina’s 7th District, one of the more expensive House races in the country. The district has attracted $1.6 million in outside spending so far, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

“Two Mikes” says McIntyre “talks like a conservative” but has voted like a liberal.

Enyart, a retired general who until recently headed Illinois’ National Guard, faces Republican businessman Jason Plummer for retiring Democratic Rep. Jerry Costello’s seat in Illinois’ 12th District.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — President Barack Obama urged delegates at the Democratic National Convention to beware “the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election” in his acceptance speech Thursday night.

“If you reject the notion that our government is forever beholden to the highest bidder, you need to stand up in this election,” Obama said to a roaring crowd in the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte.

The impassioned speech came the same week that the main pro-Obama super PAC, Priorities USA Action, said it raised $10 million in August, a record for the group, and enlisted the aid of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s campaign co-chairman, to help it raise money.

Democrats staked out positions against secret election spending, big-money politics and the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision throughout the convention.

The party is being seriously outraised by Republican super PACs and nonprofits, and its position is in stark contrast to Republicans, whose party platform opposes efforts to undo the high court’s decision.

The 2010 Citizens United ruling overturned an existing ban on corporate- and union-funded advertisements that advocate for the election or defeat of federal candidates.

It further said that independent political ads — even those funded with unlimited corporate cash — do not pose a threat of corruption. That’s a point that campaign finance reformers have disputed.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees joins the political spending spree with more than $2.8 million in new ads, Federal Election Commission reports show.

While the union itself has already made a handful of ad buys this election, Thursday’s buy represents the first major round of ads this season from AFSCME’s political action committee, AFSCME PEOPLE (which stands for “Public Employees Organized to Promote Legislative Equality”).

AFSCME PEOPLE launched three ads:

• “Washington Changed Us,” which opposes former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson’s senatorial run against Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin. The ad cost $966,000;
• “Side,” which opposes the re-election of Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., who is being challenged by Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley. The ad cost $1.1 million;
• “Mortgages,” a radio ad that opposes Heller and cost $105,000.

AFSCME the union also spent $768,000 on “Gamble,” opposing Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., who is challenging Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

Conservative outside spending groups are welcoming President Barack Obama to Charlotte, N.C., with a barrage of attack ads.

At least three conservative nonprofits and the Republican National Committee are running television and print ads as Obama prepares to give his acceptance speech for the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte Thursday night.

The Republican Jewish Coalition attacked the new Democratic platform that removed certain pro-Israel language from platforms of years passed — some of which was replaced.

It bought $75,000 worth of ad space in the Charlotte Observer highlighting the difference between the 2008 platform and the 2012 platform. One of the sticking points — that the platform removed a statement about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel — has since been reinstated, at Obama’s insistence, albeit amid some confusion, AP reported.

The ad is also slated to run next week in Jewish newspapers in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

The nonprofit American Future Fund attempts to draw attention away from what Democrats call the Republicans’ “war on women” with the ad “What’s at Stake.”

The ad, airing in North Carolina, features pro-choice women saying a woman’s right to choose is not at stake in this election — the “future of America” is. The women say that is the reason they are voting for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Super PAC fundraiser Paul Begala climbed atop a table and told a roomful of VIP donors that “giving until it hurts” isn’t good enough.

“I want you to give until it feels good,” he said, because it will “really hurt” to wake up Nov. 7 with Republican Mitt Romney on his way to the White House.

The high-profile Democratic operative was addressing donors at a cocktail party in downtown Charlotte Tuesday, just blocks from the convention hall where Democrats unveiled a platform that condemns big-money politics.

If elected, Romney and his fellow Republicans will “repeal the 20th century,” Begala told the room.

Begala was one of President Bill Clinton’s chief strategists and is now a top adviser to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC that is seeking to re-elect President Barack Obama.

Created in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010, super PACs can accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions to be used to pay for political ads.

Democrats, who are being badly outraised by Republicans in the super PAC race, have criticized them, including Begala.

“I want to live in an America without super PACs,” Begala said, shortly before announcing that Priorities USA Action had raised a record $10 million during the month of August.

Democrats have defended their reluctant embrace of the political organizations, saying if they don’t create their own it will amount to unilateral disarmament.

“If [former Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev has nuclear weapons, I want President [John F.] Kennedy to have them too,” Begala said.

Amid a flurry of nasty ads released yesterday, one stands out for its … cuteness.

“Short Leash” from the Democrat-aligned super PAC Majority PAC is an attack ad starring a puggle (a designer breed of a pug and beagle mix) aimed at North Dakota Rep. Rick Berg, a Republican running for U.S. Senate against former Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp.

“Rick Berg talks big in North Dakota but does what he’s told in Washington,” the narrator says, while the obedient pup pants happily in front of the Capitol.

The ad goes on to detail the ways in which Berg has voted the party line, including on Medicare, and asks, “Do we really want a senator on a short leash in Washington?”

Majority PAC has hit Berg before on some of the same claims listed in “Short Leash.” At least four other ads from Majority PAC claim Berg voted to “cut Medicare.”

Berg has in fact voted with his party on all major issues this Congress, according to the Washington Post’s congressional votes database, but the Medicare claims are a little more complicated.

Each party accuses the other of seeking major Medicare cuts: Democrats criticize the cost-saving measures in Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan, and Republicans criticize those in President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.