Mediaboss Marketing

The corporate raider, played by Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney in 2012, is once again the Democrats favorite campaign villain.

This time, the partys broadcast ads feature at least nine Republican Senate candidates whom Democrats are trying to link to the shutdown of factories and loss of jobs overseas. When the candidate has no business record, the ads attack the billionaire Koch brothers, major Republican donors in this years elections.

The strategy harnesses a current of national anxiety over vanishing American middle-class jobs and displaced workers, and its focused on battleground states that include struggling manufacturing powerhouses like North Carolina and Michigan.

Outsourcing is second only to Medicare and Social Security as a Democratic ad theme, according to Senate Majority PAC, a group tied to the partys Senate leader, Harry Reid of Nevada.

Yet while Democratic strategists say its an effective fundraising tactic, it may be a harder sell to voters. Romney was depicted by Democrats as a job cutter based on his time at private equity firm Bain Capital. Many Republican candidates this year, including Joni Ernst in Iowa and Bill Cassidy in Louisiana, lack obvious ties to companies sending jobs offshore.

And while Charles and David Koch are among the biggest underwriters of Republican campaigns in this election through their network of political spending groups, polls show that many Americans dont even know them.

Its awfully difficult to explain who the Kochs are and what their relationship is to the Republican candidates, said Peter Fenn, a Democratic consultant who advised the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and John Kerry.

The Kochs and the business record of their global array of petroleum, chemical, agriculture and mineral-services companies is a theme in Senate campaigns and three House races covering 10 states, according to Kantar Medias Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising.

Rob Tappan, a Koch Industries spokesman, said the ads are politically motivated attempts to mislead voters and smear the hard-working employees of Koch Industries. Koch has made tough but necessary decisions to close sites due to domestic and global market conditions, he said.

Sending jobs overseas is a Democratic theme in Colorado, where political ads say U.S. Representative Cory Gardner, a Republican challenging Democratic Senator Mark Udall, is being funded by the Kochs.

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Kochs Tied to Job Losses by Democrats Reviving 2012 Ploy