Ramstad complains race for his seat has turned nasty

Posted at 4:49 PM on October 7, 2008 by Curtis Gilbert (2 Comments)
Filed under: U.S. MN CD3

Retiring U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., says the man trying to keep his seat in Republican hands is the victim of a smear campaign.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been running television ads and mailing out fliers accusing Republican candidate Erik Paulsen of voting against veterans and taking campaign money raised at a strip club.

Ramstad hold up fliers claiming Paulsen took money from a strip club fundraiser

Independent media reports have found both those claims highly misleading. In an event organized by the Paulsen campaign, Ramstad said it's the dirtiest campaign he's seen during his career in politics.

"I'll never forget some of those early campaigns and I've never seen trash like what's been leveled against Erik Paulsen," Ramstad said. "I've never seen such gutter politics, certainly not in Minnesota."

Paulsen also took some questions from reporters at the event. You can hear the whole press conference here:

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Paulsen's DFL opponent Ashwin Madia has no control over the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. But Madia says "to the extent they are inaccurate" he condemns the ads.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the GOP counterpart to the DCCC, had planned to run ads supporting Paulsen, but has recently scaled back ad buys with at least two Twin Cities television stations.

Paulsen told WCCO Sunday that when all the spending by outside groups like the DCCC is included, he expects to be outspent in the race four-to-one.

Madia releases new policy details

Meanwhile, Madia Tuesday released some new policy proposals aimed at helping small businesses.

They included a tax credit for companies that cover a "significant portion" of their workers' health insurance premiums.

In a phone interview this afternoon, I talked with Madia about the proposals, Ramstad's comments and a new Paulsen ad that accuses him of lying.

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The Paulsen ad is not available online, yet, but when it is, Polinaut will have the link for you.

Comments (2)

To me the most disturbing thing is the totally partisan comments made by Ramstad. He continually directly blames "the Madia Campaign" for the scurulous (sp?) ads and attacks against Erik Paulsen. This was not done just once, but many times and not until the end of the questions after his initial comments did he finally mention the DCCC (there is another group that has run ads, but the name escapes me). In one 16 minute period I lost all respect for Ramstad....he's no different that Paulsen's other hatchet men, Ron Carey, Geoff Michel, and Michael Brodkorb. He is totally out of touch with whats been going on in this race, as it has been Erik Paulsen that has said virtually nothing about the issues, and has evaded engaging the voters and Madia on the real issues. Madia, for his part, has been talking non stop about the issues and listening to the concerns of the voters in our district. Someone in the press needs to have the b.... to call Ramstad on his totally partisan press conference. And Paulsen's latest attack ad.....give me a break!

Posted by rainman | October 7, 2008 6:59 PM

To me the most disturbing thing is that Madia claims to run a "clean" campaign while the party to which he belongs acts as a hatchet man that cannot be touched. Give me a break. The name of the other group, rainman, is something like "Midwest Patriots" or some such. The fact that Madia is only slightly ahead in the polls at this point with total funding that is 4x that of Paulsen is a testament to the integrity of the citizens of the Third District. Let us all hope that integrity wins and the ridiculous DCCC ads lose, or this country is in worse shape than anyone can imagine.

Posted by truthman | October 9, 2008 1:47 PM

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