The Center for Public Integrity

The Republican-affiliated American Action Network has unleashed a 30-second ad against freshman Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly, who represents the liberal-leaning Virginia suburbs outside Washington, D.C., for his votes on the economic stimulus and health care reform bills.

A reader in Harriman, N.Y. alerted us to a conservative independent group’s new TV ad urging the defeat of former pop musician and second-term Democrat John Hall. In the 1970s, Hall had several hits such as “Dance With Me” with the band Orleans before going on to represent New York’s 19th Congressional District.

A second Republican-allied group has unleashed an attack ad targeting Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington. The new ad criticizes Murray’s 18 years in the U.S. Senate and was bought by American Action Network, one of four major conservative groups that recently pledged to spend a combined $50 million in the final weeks before the Nov. 2 election. One of American Action Network’s partners in the late October spending spree against Democratic candidates is Crossroads GPS, which paid for an earlier ad criticizing Murray for contributing to the national debt.

It must be Ken Buck week here at You Report central. A reader in Colorado followed up yesterday’s post about an education group’s attack ad against the Republican candidate for Senate by alerting us to another one.

A reader in Denver alerted us to an ad that went up yesterday in Colorado by the NEA Advocacy Fund, blasting Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck for his views on education funding.

Poet Shel Silverstein once noted that, “Some kind of help is the kind of help we all can do without.” While candidates targeted by independent ads are often the loudest critics of them, sometimes the intended beneficiaries are not enamored with them either. A reader in Maine wrote to alert us to one such situation, in a Maine statehouse race, where the National Organization for Marriage is paying for flyers criticizing a Democratic incumbent who backed a state bill to expand civil marriage to same-sex couples.

AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees labor union, is spending a whopping $750,000 on a 30-second ad in Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District race — more than either candidate has spent since the start of the 2010 campaign cycle, according to AFSCME filings with the Federal Election Commission.

California Sen. Barbara Boxer is now being hit by independent expenditure ads in two languages. Yesterday, You Report: Election 2010 noted that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has an ad criticizing the Democrat for her budget votes. Now, two socially conservative groups based in Washington are running a Spanish-language ad blasting Boxer for her record on social issues.

Among the best-known independent expenditure groups attempting to shape the November election is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has decided that defeating California Sen. Barbara Boxer is in the best interests of its 3 million business members.

In the age of YouTube, it’s easy to forget that TV advertising doesn’t come cheap. Producing a spot, then buying air time in a TV market can quickly add up, which might help explain the series of similar ads running nationwide by American Future Fund (AFF). AFF, one of the older 501(c)(4) groups running ads this year, says it provides “a conservative and free market viewpoint.”