Campaigns often object to their opponents' negative ads, and sometimes even try to get them pulled off the air. Last night is the first time I've seen a campaign send their opponent's attack ad to their own email list.
The Collins campaign sent the email to tout her dominance of recent newspaper endorsements, but the piece also attacks an Allen ad for being dishonest, and the most prominent link in the email reads "Click here to listen to the ad." Clicking through allows the recipient to hear an mp3 of an Allen radio ad (hosted on Collins' servers) and read the campaigns rebuttal of one of its points - that the Collins campaign is unfairly criticizing Allen for missing votes due to family emergencies.
Interestingly, that particular attack is only about 12 seconds of the minute-long ad. The rest of the spot is about Collins' support of the Bush economic policies, claims that are not rebutted on that page.
Listening to the ad an
Listening to the ad an interesting point was made by an apolitical chum who happened to be nearby - the Allen complaint is out of order. His campaign says Collins is critical of him for missing votes for family illnesses and the death of his parents "but EVEN WORSE" Collins voted for Bush policies. Even worse? That's pitiful. Looking at the Collins' ad, no mention is made of missed votes due to family crisis, only the raw number of votes missed and bills and ammendments passed - is Allen claiming that those numbers - 55-3 - are inaccurate? Perhaps he missed a few votes due to family stuff, as Michaud and Snowe most likely have as well, but the number of absences by Allen must be explained by his campaign. It is he who has brought his family into this. Why can't Allen stand on his own? Why can't Tom fight his own battles? Only a wimp would drag in his wife and kids to a fight that's going bad.
Majority
Bearclaw Grislap:
You either are ignorant of how the minority was excluded from House proceedings while the GOP was in power (since 1994), or are purposefully not mentioning it. It became so bad under the leadership of Tom DeLay (and also Senate leader Bill Frist) that Democrats were not even invited to conference committees, where differences between similar House and Senate bills were ironed out.
Allen and other Democrats could submit as many bills as they liked during those years, but the GOP leadership ensured that they never would be reported out of committee.
Tom Allen's campaign is
Tom Allen's campaign is amateur hour. They have let Collins get them off message and are playing defense by talking about attendance records.