I flew down to Florida for work yesterday, and on the flight read a New York Times article about how the Koch brothers were funding anti-Obamacare, anti-Obama advertisements through front groups across the country.

Democrats are increasingly anxious about an onslaught of television ads hitting vulnerable Senate and House candidates for their support of the new health law, since many lack the resources to fight back in the early stages of the midterm campaign.

In Florida, where your radio choices tend to alternate between Christian radio, top 40, Latin and sports radio (“I would fire him in two seconds”), I turned on the TV last night and saw one of these ads.

In it, a Latina-looking woman who claims to be a doctor (she is; a radiologist) talked about how she was so worried about the impact of Obamacare, how her patients kept asking her if she was going to give up medicine and she just didn’t have an answer for them. (In other words: “No.”)

The ad then flashed an unflattering picture of a Democratic congressman who had voted for Obamacare and asked viewers to reach out to the congressman and ask him why, why he had done this to them.

It was paid for by a group called The Libre, which of course is Spanish for “the free.”

I looked up The Libre, and it’s pretty much what you’d expect. It describes itself as “a 501(c)4 non-partisan, non-profit grassroots organization that advances the principles and values of economic freedom to empower the U.S. Hispanic community.”

You know that at least two of those descriptions are untrue: It’s not non-partisan and it’s clearly not grass-roots. Its executive director, Daniel Garza, has a history of working in Republican politics. But I seriously doubt that the people who really run it are even Latino.

One of its cover “stories” is headlined, “The Painful Impact of Obamacare on Hispanics.”

The site contains a Twitter feed carrying tweets about The Libre, and the Tweeters don’t even pretend that the group is non-partisan. One says,

Impressed with the efforts of the @LibreInitiative, they are doing a great job of outreach on the Right.

And another says:

Program for tonight’s event with @georgepbush…excited to speak about the work of @LIBREinitiative

And remember, these are the ones The Libre is retweeting.

I learned all this in about five minutes; how much could a reporter learn by taking a little longer? And how can such a group possibly have tax-free status?

The cynicism of this really is striking. Does Obamacare really hurt Latinos? (Or, as the GOP calls them, Hispanics.) I doubt it’ in fact, given that many Latinos in the country are low-wage workers at small businesses, it’s probably terrific for them.

But more important, this is the party the majority of whose members steadfastly oppose immigration reform, which is hugely popular among Latinos, trying to pass itself off as Latinos’ best friend.

It’s all pretty gross. And the worst part of it is that, according to the Times, it’s working.

I googled the ad and got this headline from an article on stupid Yahoo.

“Anti-Obama Ad Highlights Hispanic Dismay with the A.C.A.”

Of course, it does no such thing; it highlights the Koch brothers’ hatred of the President.

Living in New York, a state with sometimes bizarre but generally more sophisticated politics, we don’t see a lot of this stuff. It’s pretty depressing.

Anyway, here’s the ad:

Dr. Christie, by the way, turns out to be the daughter of Cuban immigrants and an anti-abortion activist who writes op-ed pieces like “Liberal Definition of ‘Reproductive Freedom’ Endangers the Beautiful, Traditional Role of Women.” Not exactly a non-partisan medical voice.