Democrats Attack GOP Record on Regulation

Democrats release another TV ad on Wall Street reform

Democrats' financial-reform messaging strategy, so far, has been to demonize Wall Street and big banks. Today, they're going after their Republican adversaries more directly.

The Democratic National Committee released its second TV ad on financial reform, and it hits the GOP for opposing bank regulation in the past, asserting that Republican policies were responsible for the collapse of the financial system:

It's an attempt to paint Republicans as allies of Wall Street, as they oppose Democratic financial reform plans. The ad takes a shot at John McCain, repurposing footage of McCain stating that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" during the 2008 campaign (for which he was criticized relentlessly by the Obama campaign and its surrogates).

Coincidentally, this is a messaging strategy suggested by National Journal's Ronald Brownstein in his last column: developing an "authority to repudiate" by portraying one's own agenda as "the remedy for...predecessors' failures."

The ad will air nationwide on cable for two weeks. As a policy, the DNC does not announce how much it is spending on air time.

See the DNC's previous financial-reform ad, plus an ad from the liberal interest group Americans United for Change, here.