Ricketts group boosting Scott Brown on O-Care with new ad

Ending Spending Action Fund, the group backed by billionaire Joe Ricketts, is launching a new ad in the New Hampshire Senate race touting Scott Brown’s opposition to ObamaCare during his time as U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

{mosads}According to NH Journal, which first reported the ad, Ending Spending Action Fund will air it on WMUR TV and on cable sports networks.

It features a clip of Brown railing against ObamaCare in his victory speech when he was first elected as senator in Massachusetts in a 2010 special election.

“It will raise taxes; it will hurt Medicare; it will destroy jobs and run our nation deeper into debt,” he says.

A narrator goes on to outline a number of potential impacts now that the law has passed, warning New Hampshire residents “could lose access to their local hospital,” and seniors “could lose their doctors.”

And the ad declares: “Scott Brown was right on ObamaCare then. He’s right for New Hampshire now.”

It previously ran ads knocking Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) for comments she made similar to the now-erroneous proclamation from President Obama that Americans could keep their insurance plans under ObamaCare. The group says it “led the effort” to persuade Brown to enter the race with a statewide Web advertising campaign last year.

Brian Baker, the group’s president, said Shaheen was part of the spending problem in Washington.

“New Hampshire taxpayers have a friend in Scott Brown. He is part of the solution to what is wrong in Washington, while Sen. Shaheen continues to contribute to the problem,” Baker said.  

In response to the new ad, Shaheen’s campaign manager Mike Vlacich noted Brown has not yet signed a pledge to keep outside groups off the airwaves in the race, something Brown created during his last run for Senate in Massachusetts but has refused to sign for his current race.

“Scott Brown is running from his own People’s Pledge, and it is because he is counting on the big banks to buy him New Hampshire’s Senate seat with ads like this,” Vlacich said.

“We are ready to meet anytime and anywhere to sign the People’s Pledge and stop these third party, out-of-state groups from pouring their millions into New Hampshire and polluting our airwaves,” said Vlacich.

Brown is expected to make his bid against Shaheen official within the next two weeks, after launching an exploratory committee in the race about a month ago.

He’s facing a handful of other Republicans in the primary but is expected to take the nomination.