Tom Janenda

UPDATE: Pingree released a second ad Thursday. 

First Congressional District candidate Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, released an advertisement Tuesday centered on her opposition to the war in Iraq – both in 2002 when she ran for Senate and now.

“It was uncommon, Chellie Pingree had the courage to oppose the war in Iraq from the beginning, even when other Democrats supported George Bush,” the ad begins.

In the ad, she argues that money in Iraq would be better spent on health care, job creation and education.

This comes after two of her opponents, Democrats Adam Cote and Ethan Strimling, criticized her for being inconsistent in her position on funding the war. Saturday, Major General Paul Eaton wrote a letter to the editor to the Portland Press Herald, disassociating himself from the Pingree campaign and endorsing Cote, an Iraq veteran, instead.