Coleman calls for end to all attack ads
Posted: Saturday, October 18, 2008 6:20 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Congress, Republicans
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), who called for pulling all of his negative advertising Oct. 10 (though the NRSC was running anti-Franken ads), has called now for all "attack ads and phones calls" to be pulled across the country, including robo-calls paid for by the Republican National Committee.
"It's time for all of these attacks to end," Coleman said, per a release, during his Obama-sounding "Hope Express Tour." "I pulled down my negative ads because I felt we need to keep the focus on the issues facing our nation. I call on Al Franken, the DNC, the RNC, the DSCC, the NRSC and any other organization engaged in negative attacks on any candidate to bring them to an immediate end. Minnesotans are sick and tired of this, and they want positive solutions for the future and for how we're going to turn this country around. Enough is enough."
Coleman is the latest Republican to put some distance between himself and the RNC's robo-calls, which invoke Obama's ties to 60s radical William Ayers. Earlier, Maine's Susan Collins said of the calls, “They don’t serve John McCain well. This kind of campaign call does not reflect the kind of leader that he is.” A spokesperson for Collins told the same publication, “These kind of tactics have no place in Maine politics. Sen. Collins urges the McCain campaign to stop these calls immediately.”
Prior to his call for the negative ads to be pulled, Coleman was overwhelmingly seen as running the more negative campaign, according to a Minnesota Public Radio/University of Minnesota poll.
*** UPDATE *** Al Franken's campaign sends along this statement in response to its opponent's criticism of the negative ads, which one Minnesota Democrat says he traced to communications firm FLS Connect, owned by influential Republican consultant Jeff Larson. "Norm Coleman's latest political ploy rings more hollow than usual when you consider he has paid the person responsible for smear calls nearly $2 million and Jeff Larson remains the treasurer of Norm Coleman's PAC, a member of his inner circle, and his landlord," writes Franken communications director Andy Barr. "Norm Coleman is still paying Jeff Larson for the same services Larson is providing to the RNC and to the McCain campaign. If he's sincere about this, he ought to fire him."
Earlier this year, the National Journal reported on Coleman's close relationship with Larson.
