Another Ad for Financial Reform: Liberal Group Gets Involved

The push is on for financial reform, as both the Democratic Party and the DC establishment of liberal interest groups are augmenting efforts underway in Congress with a growing public campaign around tighter regulations of Wall Street.

On the same day the Democratic National Committee began airing a pro-reform ad nationwide on cable TV, the liberal interest group Americans United for Change announced the launch of its own TV ad, airing on cable in Washington, DC (a common move to target opinion-makers).

Americans United for Change is spending $17,000 to air the ad; the DNC, while it doesn't announce dollar amounts, is presumably spending much more.

The theme of both is clear: rallying post-crash resentment of banks. The DNC ad does so by demonizing the TARP bailout originated under the Bush administration and administered, in part, by the Treasury under Obama; the Americans United ad takes a somewhat cruder route, depicting Wall Street execs as pigs.

Here's the Americans United ad:

And here's the DNC ad:

Americans United is sometimes a good bellwether for what the broader body of DC-based liberal interest groups is thinking, particularly labor unions like AFL-CIO and AFSCME. It was at the forefront of Health Care for America Now!, the broad coalition of liberal groups that came together to back President Obama's health care agenda, and it is now involved in a similar coalition around financial reform, called Americans for Financial Reform.

MoveOn.org, another member of that coalition, sent an e-mail to its supporters about the need for financial reform this afternoon.

Look for more public calls for reform, and probably a few more ads, as the Senate turns its attention toward Banking Chairman Chris Dodd's bill.