Harry Reid's Opponents on Ad Attack

Talk about kickin’ a man when he’s down. Perhaps fueled by Senator Harry Reid’s recent negative publicity regarding allegedly racist statements made about President Obama, his possible opponent in the Senate race in Nevada, GOP hopeful Sue Lowden, wants to “Kick Harry Reid Out of Office.” And her primary campaign is already running the ads and microsites to prove it.

The Nevada Republican primary isn’t till June, but Lowden and her primary rival Danny Tarkanian are both running ads in the hopes of building awareness, signups, and donations. In addition to the requisite Google AdWords stuff, Lowden is also running both negative and positive display ads. I’ve spotted them on sites including OnTheIssues.org, and RealClearPolitics.

Lowden is serving up messages like, “Defeat Harry Reid Once & For All,” and “Tark” wants to “Retire Harry Reid.” Meanwhile, users who search for generic Nevada Senate race related keywords get ads from Reid’s camp linking to his site’s “seniors” page: “The Alliance for Retired Americans endorsed Sen. Harry Reid.”

No, this is not a scientific measurement of these campaigns’ AdWords buy — just an observation.

And, in my searches on terms like “Harry Reid racist,” and “Harry Reid is not a racist,” I get no ads – much less well-optimized links to his campaign’s site refuting the notion that his Obama comments were racist or that he should step down. Yet, his campaign site features an excerpt from a Las Vegas Sun op ed entitled, “Reid has stood by African-Americans.”

The Obama campaign used search to refute claims that he is a Muslim throughout the ’08 election season. I’m sure some would argue it would make sense for Reid to do something similar – ?