Business group attacks Brown, with a wink and a nod

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The California Chamber of Commerce wants to make sure you understand its new TV ad launched Tuesday is not anti-Jerry Brown. If it were, it would require the Chamber to go through an entire host of cumbersome obstacles -- like telling the public how much they’re spending on their new ad and playing by a rather pesky set of disclosure rules.

Chamber spokeswoman Denise Davis says the new spot is part of the chamber’s effort to ‘educate California voters on jobs, the economy taxes and spending.’

So even though the ad says that Brown ‘turned a budget surplus into a massive deficit,’ please don’t misconstrue the spot as a hit on the California attorney general who’s running for governor. Davis said the ad began airing Tuesday morning, but refused to discuss the details or the depth of the ad buy.

She said ‘it will cost millions to educate California on these issues. We have a budget to do that.’

But when asked if that meant the chamber was in fact prepared to spend millions against Brown, er, on this ‘education campaign,’ she stuck to her carefully parsed statement.

[Updated at 2:02 p.m.: Brown spokesman Sterling Clifford called the chamber’s claim that the ad isn’t an attack on Brown ‘ludicrous on its face. The poisonous partisan attack is an utter betrayal of the chamber’s mission to represent the business community, not just do the bidding of one billionaire running for governor.’]

You can watch the chamber’s ad below.

-- Anthony York