Of Course the Right Wing Koch Brothers Use Actors to Pretend They Are Real People in Their Anti-Health Care Reform Act Ads

Why Show the Truth When Lying is Easier

The unrelenting attack against Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana in her re-election campaign by unlimited funding from folks like the Koch Brothers features ads of Louisiana citizens complaining of their health insurance costs and cancellation as a result of the ACA. 

The ad shows a number of people, who appear to be Louisianans, opening their mail to find a letter stating that their health care policy has been cancelled because of the Affordable Care Act.

“Due to the Affordable Care Act, your monthly premium has increased,” a voice-over says in the ad as a man in a rural neighborhood opens a cancellation letter and looks at his young daughter standing next to him. “No longer covered, due to the Affordable Care Act.”

Or maybe these are not citizens.

But the people in the emotion-evoking ad are not Louisianans at all; they are paid actors.

Landrieu’s support for the Affordable Care Act is a major sticking point in what promises to be a tough reelection campaign for the three-term senator. And her campaign is taking issue with the ad, characterizing its use of actors as “misleading” and “low.”

“Hiring professional actors to impersonate Louisiana families is low even for the billionaire Koch brothers,” Friends of Mary Landrieu Campaign Manager Adam Sullivan told ABC News. “If the Koch brothers had even a shred of credibility before launching their latest misleading ad campaign against Sen. Landrieu, they’ve surely lost it now.”

So are the infamous Koch Brothers and their stooges embarrassed by all this, of course not.

Americans for Prosperity is not backing down from the ad, with spokesman Levi Russell telling ABC News that it’s no secret that the people in the ad are actors.

“I think the viewing public is savvy enough to distinguish between someone giving a personal story and something that is emblematic,” Russell said when reached on the phone. “And we make it very clear when someone is giving a personal testimonial.”

Russell said the ad, in contrast to a “personal testimonial ad” that would use the story of a real voter, is “cinematic” and meant to be a “representative of Americans from all walks of life.”

After all, when one is using the wealth of billionaires to work to deny basic health care to millions of low income people, using paid actors to pretend they are real people is just chump change.