The general election campaign came to Michigan this weekend as President Obama and the well-funded conservative group Americans for Prosperity began airing TV ads at a robust pace during news shows.
Obama’s first campaign ad seems to serve as a defense against the AFP commercial that attacks the federal subsidy for solar panel maker Solyndra as cronyism.
The Obama ad praises his record on energy issues, even in the face of the uproar over his rejection of the Keystone pipeline, claiming that the president has created 2.7 million green energy jobs. It also refers to data that shows U.S. dependence on foreign oil at its lowest level in decades.
The AFP ad blasts the president for pushing a $535 million loan guarantee for California-based Solyndra to help campaign contributors within the firm. Americans for Prosperity is partially funded by the conservative billionaire Koch brothers.
The dueling ads are running in several key swing states.
“Secretive oil billionaires attacking President Obama with ads fact-checkers say are not tethered to the facts, while independent watchdogs call this president’s record on ethics unprecedented,” the president’s campaign intones.
The AFP ad cites internal emails from the administration that indicate politics played a role in the Solyndra deal. It also points out that nearly all of the company’s employees lost their jobs when the firm abruptly shut its doors in September 2011, just months after Obama toured the plant to tout his green energy policies.
Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has denied that the president’s debut ad of the election year was “defensive,” saying that the spot was designed to point out sharp differences between the two parties on environmental policy.

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