The dueling advertisements over the looming state government shutdown on July got a new entry Wednesday from the Coalition of Minnesota Businesses, an umbrella group of 11 of the state's employer organizations.
The ad, titled "live within your means," echoes one of the Republican legislative leadership team's main talking points in the budget showdown.
The 30-second ad is a followup to newspaper and radio ads already run by the coalition and represents a ramping up of its campaign to push Gov. Mark Dayton to accept the budget passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature. It also follows ad campaigns mounted by public employee unions, a liberal coalition and two conservative organizations.
Charlie Weaver, the Minnesota Business Partnership's executive director, explained the timing of the ad this way: "Now's the time when people are starting to pay attention" to the likelihood of a shutdown.
Weaver was coy about how much the coalition is spending on the ad, saying only that it is "significant" and "statewide."
"We're going to spend as much as we can raise," he said. How much is that so far? "Quite a bit," he said.
He added: "Let's just say we will be competitive with the [A]lliance [for a Better Minnesota, whose ads are backing Dayton] or with the unions. We will never keep up with the unions. They will always outspend us, but we will be competitive."
The ad opens with a clock ticking and states that legislators passed a "responsible budget" without raising taxes, adding that Dayton "wants to raise taxes and spend more." It concludes: Gov. Dayton -- don't shut down state government."
