Anti-Wellstone Ad Is Misleading

WASHINGTON (July 30) -- A new Republican TV ad targets Minnesota Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone.

The attacker is New York Sen. Al D'Amato's political machine -- the National Republican Senatorial Committee. But can D'Amato's gang shoot straight? Consider the ad, which started running in Minnesota last week and claims Wellstone is too liberal on crime.

"Paul Wellstone sides with the liberals," the TV spot says. "Wellstone even voted twice to let violent criminals out of jail before they served 85 percent of their sentences."

But just hold on a second. Siding with liberals? Sure, but look who else Wellstone is siding with.

On all three votes cited by the Republican TV ad, Minnesota's Republican senator at the time, David Durenberger, voted the same way.

The awful pictures make Wellstone look pro-crime. The ad calls Wellstone "ultra-liberal."

Ultra-liberal? On one of those votes he sided with D'Amato himself. And more than half the Republicans in the Senate voted the same way. The bill would have cost many states money.

And so the D'Amato gang's ad is way off the mark. It's misleading.

A spokesman for D'Amato's committee defended the ad, saying, "Wellstone has a long record of being soft on crime. It's impossible to fit his entire soft-on-crime record into a 30-second ad."

D'Amato wants Minnesota voters to believe Wellstone is ultra-liberal because he voted the same way as D'Amato. Ads like that could backfire and make the Republican candidate, Rudy Boschwitz, a victim of friendly Republican fire.

This story originally appeared on CNN's "Inside Politics."

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