Everyone understands that MoveOn.org is a very liberal 527 organization. It can say and publish anything it wants. And it seems to have endless money to do so. While people on the political left will tell you again and again that the other side runs dirty campaign ads, MoveOn.org will outstrip them all, hands down. Non-partisan groups that monitor this stuff agree. This is not conservative rant or crying.
Take for example Mike Conaway, a Republican Congressman from Texas. He will safely and easily win re-election. In fact, he doesn’t even have a Democrat running against him this November, only a Libertarian. So why would you attack him and spend lots of money to do it? 
Ask MoveOn.org since they recently did it. Here is the ad they ran against Conaway:
"Why is Mike Conaway grandstanding in Congress instead of working toward real solutions to high gas prices?
Maybe it’s because he’s taken more than $200,000 from the Big Oil companies.
He’s been part of a failed energy policy written by Big Oil. In the last eight years, we’ve seen oil profits soar as the price of gasoline has gone from $2 to $4 a gallon.
Big Oil keeps running the show, getting millions in tax breaks.
Now we have John McCain who’s taken more than a million dollars from Big Oil in the last few months.
What do McCain and Mike Conaway want to do next? Drill offshore?
That’s a gimmick. Not a solution. We wouldn’t see a drop of oil from offshore drilling for at least ten years. By then, who knows where prices will be?
But Mike Conaway is more interested in political stunts than honest solutions to rising gas prices. Tell him to hop out of Big Oil’s pocket and to start paying attention to the people who elected him."
The fact is that this ad will likely get Conaway more votes, not less. As a friend of mine, who works in Congress for a House member, told me, this “is like running ads in Detroit against John Dingell for supporting the auto industry.” It makes no sense at all. But this is the point. MoveOn.org has so much money no one knows what they will do with all of it. This has even been called "Stupid Money" – enough money that those who spend it don’t have to even think about where they throw it. The Democrats, as well as the Republicans, have a committee for electing members of congress. This year the Democrats have twice as much cash on hand at this point in the election cycle as they did in 2006, and we know how well they did in 2006 when they took both houses of Congress. And nobody knows how much MoveOn.org has since it does not have to reveal it’s financing. One source says they are putting $80 million into this election. My friend serving the congressman writes: “If these groups are hitting Conaway, then pretty much every Republican Member of Congress can expect a love tap from the left.”
Please do not tell me which side is throwing the most “mud” and running the worst ads in this election. Both sides will run negative ads. They already have done it and we will see even more. The reason is simple: these ads work. So do not be impressed when you hear that one party is righteous and the other is downright dirty. There are extremists on both sides. A civil and wise people will avoid the extremists, the dirt and most of these attack ads. (There is usually some truth in some of the ads even if you do not like the way the ad is constructed. Usually, as in a parable, there is one central point in an ad and the careful viewer should discern the point and ask: "Is this true?")
In the case of the Conaway ad, the simple thesis this ad obviously makes is that “big oil” is the bad guy. Period, no further discussion is needed. The rich should not be so rich and the rest of us are entitled, with the help of our benevolent government, to steal (legally of course) from these far too rich fat cats. This is Robin Hood theology. Politically it was called socialism until the socialists found names that turned off fewer people, like progressive humane government, etc. Socialists want to play God by design. They look upon people as raw material to be formed into social combinations. They play off the differences between the rich and poor and create intense class conflict and unrest. Should we penalize wrong doing in the market place, have laws about ethics, etc.? You bet. Should we play God and thus try to make the market work the same way for all people? No way. The results of such market meddling are catastrophically bad. We take away everyone’s freedom when we try to arrange market forces through governments.
There are three great gifts that God has given to all of us, gifts that our founders called "inalienable rights." These are: “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” These are better understood by moderns as individuality, liberty and property. Another way to state this is “life, faculties and production.” These three gifts come from God and preserving them is the rationale for all good government. These three existed before men made laws. This is why our founders rightly called them “inalienable rights.”
I don’t care about political ads, except for some amusement, since a few are quite funny, but I care deeply about these three rights which I believe we are losing. If we are not truly intelligent, virtuous and aware of how easily these rights are being eroded, then they will not remain in the long run. Unless they are held to the same standards that our founders understood so well, by their very nature the people who want power in government will continue to take these rights away .
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