Candidates condemning national party ads, tactics

Congressional candidates around the country are condemning attacks orchestrated by their national campaign committees, trying to distance themselves from a negative tone and an unpopular Washington.

With congressional and presidential approval ratings near all-time lows, and anti-Washington sentiment peaking, candidates are calling on their committees to pull ads and cease spending on negative campaigning.

{mosads}In Arizona’s 8th district, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) last week spoke out against a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) ad that focused on a bus company owned by her opponent’s family.

She called the committee to pull the ad, and this week it obliged, according to the Associated Press.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) went a step further Friday, criticizing a robo-call put out in her state by GOP presidential nominee John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC).

The calls allege Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the Democratic presidential nominee, “worked closely” with “domestic terrorist” Bill Ayers, a former member of the violent anti-war group Weather Undergound.

The robo-calls have been running in 10 crucial swing states, and Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) brought up Ayers at the final presidential debate Wednesday.

"These kinds of tactics have no place in Maine politics," Collins spokesman Kevin Kelley said. "Sen. Collins urges the McCain campaign to stop these calls immediately."

The McCain campaign said it respected Collins, a co-chair for McCain’s campaign in her state, but declined to comment further.

Collins has maintained a lead over Rep. Tom Allen (D), but Democrats hold out hope that they can compete in the blue state.

Another senator fighting for reelection, Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, has repeatedly called on the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and other outside groups to pull all negative advertising, as his campaign did one week ago.

Despite Coleman’s urging, the NRSC and U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched ads this week attacking Democrat Al Franken.

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) has taken a similar tack to Coleman, declining to criticize Democrat Jim Himes.

Shays has denounced the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) for linking Himes to Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), who has admitted to having extramarital affairs and was recently reported to have paid one of his mistresses more than $120,000 in hush money.

Shays also criticized NRCC attempts to link Himes to Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who has asked the House ethics committee to investigate several recent revelations about his personal finances.

Shays said he has asked the NRCC not to run ads in his district.

"I pleaded with them: Let me sink or swim on my own," Shays said in a debate Thursday, according to a Hartford Courant article.

The NRCC has yet to make an independent expenditure in the race, while the wealthier DCCC has spent more than $800,000 on Himes’s behalf.

On the Democratic side, both Minnesota 3rd district candidate Ashwin Madia and Rep. Travis Childers (Miss.) have distanced themselves from national party attacks on their opponents.

In Madia’s district, the DCCC has accused his opponent, Republican state Rep. Eric Paulsen, of accepting money from a fundraiser at a Las Vegas strip club. Local media fact checkers have labeled parts of the attack “false” and “misleading,” as the link between the fundraiser and Paulsen is tenuous.

“I wish there was something I could do about them, but there's not," Madia said, according to Minnesota Public Radio. "To the extent that they're inaccurate, I condemn them."

Madia’s campaign has also used the strip club line of attack, though, issuing a press release in September on the topic.

Likewise, in Childers’s Mississippi district, he and Republican opponent Greg Davis have both called for a DCCC ad launched this week to be pulled.

The ad accuses Davis, the mayor of Southaven, of accepting two taxpayer-funded sport utility vehicles while raising property taxes on his constituents.

It come on the heels of a special election in which the DCCC in a mailer in the closing days of the race tried to tie Davis to Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Of the more recent ad, Childers told the Memphis Commercial Appeal: "This advertisement portrays the same negative campaign tactics that polluted the race in the spring, and I ask that the DCCC stop airing this ad on North Mississippi television.”

Most candidates are quick to note that they have no control over independent ads and are legally prohibited from coordinating with the groups that run them.