DSCC

According to a new poll taken for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senator Collins lead in the polls has shrunk and Allen now trails only 49% to 41%,with 10 percent undecided. Collins' poll numbers have consistently shown her with a double digit lead as have polls from third party sources.

Once again, demonstrating the importance of cash on hand, the Collins campaign responded to both ads. As reported in PolitickerME, Collins responded directly to the DSCC ad. The Collins response ad opens with the narrator saying, "For 18 months, Tom Allen's out of state allies have tried to mislead you about Susan Collins. They distort her record, and ignore the facts." The rest of the ad refutes each of the points, point by point -- and gets one last whack at Tom Allen, essentially blaming him for the ad. This is a good response ad, and at the very least provides a good counter balance to the DSCC ad. The victim angle, in which viewers are supposed to feel terrible that Tom Allen's friends are saying such mean things about Senator Collins, is pretty humorous. Here you have someone up double digits in the polls and with a few million more dollars in the bank than her rival, and the they embrace the victim card. I have no doubt that the meme's in Lewiston will probably buy every word of it.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) fired up a new ad earlier this week aimed directly at the voting record of Senator Collins.

This ad is light years ahead of the negative ad being run by the Allen campaign. It is specific, it talks to Mainers and their wallets and creates a theme around "more of the same" in a far more effective way than the change mantra from the Allen campaign.

So, we now have the "negative ad" from the Allen campaign on the Collins record.

There are lots of scary words like ‘crisis', ‘crippled' and ‘worst,' as well as a collection of really sad faces and mean republican scowls, except of course for Senator Collins who is smiling and wearing her signature red outfit.   Though I don't think that was the intent of the ad.  I think we were supposed to look at her smiling down on the evil George Bush - who, I assume is signing a piece of legislation that Collins managed to get passed while in Washington.  Though, I am quite sure that was not the point of the ad either.