UPDATED at 6:35 p.m.
With the release of two new television ads Wednesday, the conservative super PAC Vermonters First demonstrated that it’s in Vermont politics for the long haul.
As the Vermont Press Bureau’s Peter Hirschfeld first reported this morning, the group today began airing two new, 15-second ads attacking Democrats for proposing $70 million in new taxes.
“An eight-cent-a-gallon gas tax increase?” says a man featured in one ad as he fills up the tank of his pickup truck. “That’ll make it harder to do my job.”
A narrator then intones, “Vermont Democrats are proposing at least $70 million in new taxes on working Vermonters. Call your legislators and say no to these higher taxes.”
The ads are the first public move by Vermonters First since the final two months of the 2012 campaign season, when it spent more than a million dollars without much success. The ads signal that the group, which was almost entirely funded by Burlington heiress Lenore Broughton, has designs on influencing not just elections, but legislative deliberations as well.
How much Vermonters First plans to invest in its new media campaign is unclear, though WCAX-TV confirmed that the group has thus far spent $7800 to air the ads 31 times. They began running Wednesday and are slated to air at least through March 1.
The group’s treasurer, consultant and de facto spokesman, Tayt Brooks, declined to comment Wednesday on its plans or strategy.
The group’s critics on the left, however, were quick to pounce.
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