(Paid) Outpouring of support for Steve Kagen

It has been warm here this week and it appears the astroturf will come in early this year.

From the JS All Politics blog:

The Democratic National Committee began airing television ads Thursday thanking Rep. Steve Kagen and 24 other House Democrats in competitive districts who voted for sweeping health care legislation Sunday.

You can watch the DNC ad here.

But that's not all. The Wis Politics DC Wrap has this item:

Liberal group Americans United for Change is running robocalls in Wisconsin's 8th CD asking listeners to thank U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen, D-Appleton, for his vote in favor of health care reform....

The robocall narrator tells listeners that insurance companies hired more than 2,000 lobbyists and spent $86 million to kill the health care legislation.

"But the insurance companies didn't win," the narrator says. "Because your Congressman, Steve Kagen, said NO to big insurance and YES to standing up for regular people."

Wonder how much they spent on the robocalls? They forgot to mention he was also standing up for big government.

These moves seem to indicate two things. First, Kagen is seen as vulnerable but not at all a lost cause. Those of us in WI-8 who wish to see Kagen defeated at the polls, would do well to keep this in mind. Don't get fooled by the fact that many of the people you talk to regularly and all the blogs you read, are down on Kagen. His defeat is anything but assured.

Second, both sides engage in these sorts of paid professional campaigns and both sides like to pretend that they don't. Remember all the outrage over supposedly phony grassroots opposition to healthcare last summer? Well it was certainly more real than this phony support for Kagen.