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player ready...Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Dick Durbin’s tempered salvos in early TV ads were replaced Wednesday in new commercials peppered with assaults designed to portray Republican opponent Al Salvi as a right-wing extremist.
One less-than-subtle image shows a man in civilian clothes firing off a round of ammunition from an AK-47 assault weapon as a voiceover says Salvi, a Wauconda-area state representative, “wants to make assault weapons legal again.” Salvi has criticized the ban on semi-automatic weapons.
The 30-second commercial is the Durbin campaign’s first genuine attack ad. He did not run any leading up to the March primary, when he defeated former state Treasurer Patrick Quinn.
The new ad was sparked by what Durbin campaign manager Mike Daly called Salvi’s distorted portrayal of Durbin’s record in the U.S. House.
The Durbin-Salvi fight to replace retiring Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) has been marked by both candidates’ attempts to portray the other as out of the mainstream. Salvi has tried to paint Durbin as too liberal; Durbin has tried to portray Salvi as a far right-winger.
Salvi’s ads are “nasty stuff,” said Daly, characterizing the Durbin ad as a rebuttal.
In addition to the item on assault weapons, the new Durbin ad turns to two favorite Democratic standbys: education and senior citizens. The ads cite Salvi’s comments suggesting abolishing the U.S. Department of Education and privatizing the Social Security system.
“Al Salvi’s views are far right and out of the mainstream,” said Daly.
But Dan Patlak, a spokesman for the Salvi campaign, said: “It’s a distortion of Al Salvi’s views. And it’s fear-mongering to seniors.”
Prosecutor punches: Democrat Dick Devine’s sometimes sluggish campaign for Cook County state’s attorney perked up Wednesday with its first radio commercial.
The ad highlights recent reports that Republican incumbent Jack O’Malley took $3,000 from a drug forfeiture fund to pay for gold-engraved coffee mugs for his staffers.
O’Malley has said that using the funds for the cups was proper and that he was happy to do it because he wanted to reward a hardworking staff.
Racking up dollars: Pool shark Dawn Clark Netsch is unsheathing her cue one more time, this time to raise money for the congressional campaign of state Rep. Rod Blagojevich (D-Chicago).
Netsch, whose sharp pool shooting in a campaign commercial helped her win the Democratic nomination for governor in 1994, is pictured back at the table on an invitation for a $100-a-person Sept. 30 fundraiser hosted by Blagojevich’s women supporters. He is challenging first-term Rep. Michael Flanagan (R-Ill.) in the North Side’s 5th Congressional District.