Ed Rollins says Sen. Elizabeth Dole should be "ashamed" of a new ad.

Speaking on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight," the noted Republican strategist said that a recent ad criticizing Kay Hagan for a fundraiser hosted by an atheist is "desperate." 

"There has been a long history of despicable ads run by Republicans, led by Jesse Helms and his old Congressional Club, which I'm sure is now running Elizabeth Dole's campaign," he told Dobbs.

That's not entirely accurate. Two Helms alumni, Mark Stephens and Tom Fetzer, played a role earlier in the Dole campaign but are now in more minor positions. 

Rollins then speculated that the ad was the handiwork of Charlie Black, a North Carolina native who was also part of the Helms campaign and is now heavily involved in John McCain's presidential campaign.

"My sense is she got desperate, they came down and they did something desperate, which is so despicable and so unlike Elizabeth Dole that she should be ashamed of herself," he said.

There is no evidence that Black was involved in the Godless ad.

Carter Wrenn says 527s are the latest chapter in "an old story."

The longtime Republican political consultant says that attempts to keep major donors from influencing campaigns have just led to new ways of soliciting money.

After Watergate, Congress passed campaign finance reform that limited direct contributions to candidates, so donors began giving to political action committees. Then money went to segregated funds run by the national parties. 

Now, it goes to so-called 527 organizations, which can't explicitly call for the defeat of candidates, but can run ads attacking their positions or their records, but cannot coordinate with opponents' campaigns.

Wrenn said the legal restrictions on coordination are much looser than they used to be. When he ran the Congressional Club, he had to take care not to hire the same pollsters or consultants as Ronald Reagan, whose candidacy he was promoting.

Despite the ban on coordination, independent ads are often closely in sync with campaigns.

"You have people who have come out of the same political school, so they tend to look at things the same way," Wrenn said. "Still, you always sort of suspect that maybe in the back rooms in the dead of night there's a little bit of communication going on."