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AD WATCH: Sestak’s Navy bio vs. a questionable lobbyist claim

In two recent TV ads, Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak’s campaign has tried to frame the race as a choice between a dedicated public servant who made his life in the Navy (Sestak) and a Wall Street sympathizer who has the financial sector’s interests at heart (Republican Pat Toomey).

A 30-second spot recapping Sestak’s military history makes no disputed factual claims, and we therefore give it a score of FAIR GAME. But another ad that makes reference to Toomey’s past errs on at least one significant count, so we find it to be only HALF TRUE.

[Click here to read more about our AD WATCH fact-checking series and the different scores.]

As to the purely biographical ad, Sestak was indeed a three-star Navy Admiral; he was indeed the director of defense policy for the National Security Council in the Clinton administration; he did command an aircraft carrier battle group; and he did buck his party by staying in the Senate primary against Arlen Specter when the White House and others sought to push him aside.

The contrast commercial is more complicated. In it, a narrator opens:

Pat Toomey: a trader on Wall Street who went to Congress and voted for Wall Street, then got rich as Wall Street’s top lobbyist.

Toomey was indeed a currency derivatives trader in the industry. In Congress, he supported measures to deregulate the industry. Whether he “voted for Wall Street” is up for debate, but it falls within the realm of political rhetoric that is fair game here.

But the claim he was “Wall Street’s top lobbyist” is misleading at best, if not outright false. The claim refers to the time Toomey spent running the conservative Club for Growth, an industry-funded group that advocates low taxes and limited government while also supporting conservative primary challengers against more moderate Republicans.

In heading the Club for Growth, Toomey was indeed compensated handsomely. But as other news organizations have noted recently, he has never been registered as a lobbyist. Sestak’s campaign has argued that it’s fair to call him a lobbyist because he was indeed advocating for certain policies, and was surely in the business of political influence. Even if one accepts that, calling a man who was never registered as a lobbyist “Wall Street’s top lobbyist” is stretch.

See both ads below.

September 27, 2010 at 1:28 pm

--pa2010.com Staff

Tags: AD WATCH, Joe Sestak, Pat Toomey

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