Say what you will about the power of the Web. Gary Pearce says television advertising still rules when it comes to politics.

As Exhibit A he offers the latest poll showing Democrat Kay Hagan ahead of incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole in the U.S. Senate race.

Pearce, on his Talking about Politics blog, says the poll numbers are largely a result of the television ad campaign by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

"The ads attacking Liddy Dole are brilliant," Pearce writes. "They have planted two numbers firmly in voters' minds: 93 (her rank in effectiveness in the Senate) and 92 (the percentage of the time she votes with Bush)."

Pearce says Hagan's own, more positive, ads have not been as effective.

Pearce says the race is wide open and that, in the end, "the best attack ads will probably win."

Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s campaign acknowledges that outside advertising from the Democratic Senatorial Congressional Committee could be hurting their candidate.

But they are disavowing new poll numbers showing Dole now slightly behind Democratic challenger Kay Hagan, a state senator.

“I think the DSCC’s ads are definitely having an impact on the race,” said Dole spokesman Hogan Gidley. “When an outside group comes in and spends millions of dollars … it’s got to affect the race somehow.”

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm in Raleigh, released new numbers today showing Hagan edges Dole 42-39 among likely voters. That’s right at the margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Gidley also slammed the company for its survey style of push-button polling, a method considered less reliable among some polling experts than live interviews.

“I think the poll’s a bunch of junk for many reasons,” Gidley said.

More after the jump.

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The latest findings by Public Policy Polling are certain to get some buzz in political circles.

That's because the latest survey by the group shows Democratic state Sen. Kay Hagan leading Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole in the U.S. Senate race.

The survey of 904 likely voters from Aug. 20-23 founds that 42 percent favor Hagan and 39 percent favor Dole. Libertarian Chris Cole was the choice of 5 percent.

The margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Tom Jensen of PPP attributes Hagan's movement to an ad campaign by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee attacking Dole for her effectiveness and linking her to President Bush. Jensen described it as the "political equivalent of a punch in the gut from Muhammad Ali."

There's not much doubt where the momentum is coming from. 69 percent of voters in the state have seen the television ads about Elizabeth Dole's #93 ranking for effectiveness in the US Senate. And among those folks Hagan has an even wider 45-39 lead. Dole's saving grace is voters who don't watch much TV. She leads 45-34 with those who have not seen the ad.

More after jump.

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The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched an ad that questions Sen. Elizabeth Dole's record.

The Southern porch is usually an agreeable place, all sweet tea and hospitality.

But two Triangle porches became ground zero in contentious political videos attacking U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole that have been broadcast recently on TV and the Internet in Dole's campaign to defend her seat against state Sen. Kay Hagan.

In both cases, the owners of the porches were surprised and none too happy about the videos.

Angela Hill, a substitute teacher in Pittsboro, was watching the Olympics swimming competition on TV recently when she saw the porch of an old country store she owns in an attack ad.

Sponsored by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the ad features two older men sitting in rocking chairs on the store's porch debating Dole's effectiveness and how often she has sided with President Bush.

After the ad aired, a staffer for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee decided to do a real-life follow up and tape some regular North Carolinians in rocking chairs talking about Dole in mid-August.

Committee worker Amy Rubin went to Carrboro and talked to people sitting in rocking chairs in front of the Maple View Ice Cream store on Weaver Street. Rubin posted her video on YouTube.com and the Web site of the Democratic senatorial committee.

After several customers complained to his store manager, owner Bob Nutter became upset. The committee re-edited the video to blur the store's name.

Dole launched her own ad in response to the first rocking chairs spot. (N&O)

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole's recent ad responds to an attack ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee featuring two men in rocking chairs.

A recent TV ad attacking U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole was actually filmed in Bynum.

In a recent post, Dome wrote that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had filmed an ad featuring two old men in rocking chairs at an ice cream store near Hillsborough.

That was incorrect. The ad was filmed at the Bynum General Store in Chatham County by Squier Knapp Dunn, a firm with offices in Washington, D.C., and New York.

A follow-up Web video featuring two younger men in rocking chairs was filmed on the sidewalk outside of the Maple View Ice Cream Store in Carrboro.

The Web video was filmed without permission of the ice cream store owners.

Dome regrets the error.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee says it's sticking with 92 percent.

In a recent TV ad, the national group argued that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole voted with President Bush 92 percent of the time, citing an average of scores given by Congressional Quarterly. The Washington-based news service said that method is inaccurate, and the correct figure is 88 percent.

But DSCC spokesman Matt Miller said they weren't backing down.

"We use what has generally been the accepted method, which is to take all the years and average them together," he said on a conference call with reporters this afternoon. "We stand by that number, absolutely."

He added that North Carolina voters "would think just as poorly" of Dole at 88 or 92 percent.

"If she wants to have an argument whether she's voted 92 percent of the time with Bush or whether she's voted with him 88 percent of the time, I think that's an argument that we'd be happy to have," he said.

Miller also noted that Dole's score has gone down — from 98 percent in 2003 to 85 percent last year.

"She realizes in an election year she probably has a problem that she has voted with Bush over 90 percent of the time, and you can see her trying to move away from that," he said.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee may have planned to air ads on behalf of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole as early as Friday.

On a conference call with reporters, a spokesman for the group's counterpart, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said that the NRSC had reserved air time for TV ads promoting Dole on Friday.

But spokesman Matt Miller said that the Republican group pulled the advertising "at the last minute" yesterday.

Earlier, the head of the NRSC pledged to match the DSCC dollar for dollar in every state they're contesting, but it has not had the money to do so.

Obviously, the DSCC is not an unbiased source, but both parties have access to statewide ad budgeting and tend not to make claims that would be easily disproved. 

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole has voted with President Bush 88 percent of the time.

Recent ads by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and press releases from the Kay Hagan campaign have repeatedly said that Dole votes with Bush 92 percent of the time.

Hagan has even launched a "92 Days, 92 Ways Dole is Wrong for North Carolina" daily release tied to the figure.  

But a representative of Congressional Quarterly said today that number is incorrect because it improperly averages the yearly scores it gives members of Congress.

That's because the editors of the Washington-based news service use a different number of votes in their calculations each year based on whether the president had a clear position before the vote was taken.

(Imagine that a senator voted with Bush 100 percent of the time on 10 votes and 50 percent of the time on 20 votes. The average would not be 75 percent, or 150 divided by 2, but 66 percent, or 20 out of 30.)

Congressional Quarterly recently calculated the overall vote scores during the entire Bush administration including votes cast up until the August recess, which have not been available to now.

That score shows Dole four percentage points lower than the DSCC has claimed.