The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will begin airing ads tomorrow.

According to the campaign of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, the national Democratic group has bought more than $400,000 in TV ad time to begin tomorrow and run through Aug. 11.

The group has already reserved more than $6 million in air time. It typically runs negative ads attacking the Republican candidate, freeing the Democrat to run their own positive ads, though by law the ad campaigns are not coordinated.

The Dole campaign preemptively hit back today in a press release, attempting to link Democratic candidate Kay Hagan to the ads.

"It must have become obvious that Kay Hagan's liberal agenda is failing to catch on with North Carolina voters so her Washington handlers have hit the panic button and are trying to change the subject with a barrage of negative ads," said spokesman Don McLagan in a statement.

Hagan spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan said she was not aware of the ads.

A spokesman for the group would not confirm the content of the ads, but signs point to oil and gas issues.

The DSCC recently launched a Web site called Bought by Big Oil that attacks Dole and other Republican senators for accepting contributions from oil companies. A third-party radio ad in July blamed Dole for higher gas prices.

Update: DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller said that Dole is the one who is scared.

"It's ironic that a well-known senator with a 40-year record in Washington who is forced to run hundreds of thousands of dollars of ads in the spring to shore up her poor status with the voters is now complaining about someone else's ads," he said.  

Kay Hagan is borrowing Barack Obama's line on trade.

On Friday, the Democratic Senate candidate attacked U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole for backing free trade agreements that she said hurt North Carolina workers.

But she stopped short of calling for the North American Free Trade Agreement or the Central American Free Trade Agreement to be thrown out. Instead, she proposed a "mend it, don't end it" approach reminiscent of remarks by Obama during the state primary here.

Her trade policy calls for adding enforceable labor and environmental standards to prevent companies from moving overseas and giving the U.S. Department of Justice enforcement powers over trade agreements.

Dole spokesman Don McLagan told the Associated Press that CAFTA removed tariffs in other countries that were keeping North Carolina-made pharmaceutical and agricultural products out of those marketplaces.

"I believe the only jobs Hagan has created are those for tax collectors," he said.