The Kennedy ad in question

Posted at 3:55 PM on September 26, 2006 by Tom Scheck (3 Comments)

Mark Kennedy's U.S. Senate campaign released the ad that got Klobuchar spokeswoman Tara McGuinness fired last week. This is the ad that blogger Noah Kunin accessed (by typing in 18 different passwords) off of the website of Kennedy's media consultant. Kunin notified McGuinness who viewed the ad. That led to her firing. View the ad here. The Kennedy campaign says it's the "rough cut" and was never finished. The ad doesn't bring a new criticism. Instead, it raised Klobuchar's lobbyist history in a different light (the lobbyist issue was raised in previous Kennedy ads as well).

The Kennedy campaign also suggested Klobuchar or some other Democratic entity is push polling on the ad in question. They released a statement by Former GOP Governor Al Quie that said he was polled on Klobuchar's career as a registered lobbyist the day before Klobuchar's campaign revealed that someone in their campaign saw the ad. Kennedy campaign manager Pat Shortridge says he believes this is the "smoking gun" that Klobuchar's campaign (or another Democratic group) is using the ad in question for political advantage.

Klobuchar's campaign manager, Ben Goldfarb, called the accusation "absurd" and said last week's flap hasn't changed their campaign strategy. He said the campaign turned over the issue to the FBI and said that's all they would say about the issue.

Comments (3)

Callme crazy, but they've been running ads about her being a lobbyist for well over a week already. They were talking about it on the Big Question on the weekend of the 16th.

Although that new one is really cute. They should have ran it instead.

Posted by rew | September 26, 2006 4:36 PM

my bad, it was the 15th

http://www.startribune.com/blogs/bigquestion/?p=252

Posted by rew | September 26, 2006 4:40 PM

Wait - isn't push polling when you imply by the asking of the question that the candidate is guilty of something bad? Seems to me a push poll asking "Would you vote for Amy Klobuchar knowing that she was one of those despicable paid lobbyists?" would be something her *opponent's* campaign would run.

Besides, haven't we been hearing for weeks that she has this inescabale blot on her record? Not like it's a new idea that is just now being trotted out.

Posted by MNObserver | September 26, 2006 4:42 PM

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