Republican Senate candidate Richard Burr has launched his first negative TV ad, criticizing Democratic opponent Elaine Marshall.
The TV commercial is a soft-focused attack that features the two elderly gents in a rocking chair, accusing Marshall of backing added government spending and the so-called cap and trade energy proposal.
“Six trillion is what Elaine Marshall wants in new government spending,” says one actor.
“We're already 14 trillion in debt,” says the second old gent.
Adds an actress playing a granddaughter: “And look what that go us, high unemployment, a bad economy.”
The first actor later adds, “Elaine Marshall just doesn't get it.”
One of the actors also says Marshall backs a “cap-and-trade energy tax” which it says will lead to higher utility rates.
Since he went up earlier this month, Burr had been running positive ads.
Marshall's campaign put out an e-mail alert asking for contributions so they could begin airing their own TV commercials to counter what they called the Burr campaign's “lies.”
“Yesterday, Senator Burr used the millions he's taken from big corporations and special interests to launch the first negative attack of the race,” wrote Sam Swartz, Marshall's campaign spokesman. “After 16 years in Washington, Senator Burr doesn't want to talk about his own record, so he's using actors to lie about Elaine Marshall's.”
The Burr campaign cited as evidence that Marshall wanted wants six trillion in new government spending her support for cap-and-trade legislation, her backing of the health care law, her support for the stimulus package (a third of which were tax cuts), and her support for allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those making more than $250,000 per year.
The ad features the same two actors used in 2008 ads by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to attack Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole. And like the anti-Dole ad, it makes a play on numbers.
