Gordon Smith has watched his lead as a sitting senator evaporate in this year’s race against Jeff Merkley, his Democratic challenger. Smith is becoming increasingly unpopular and now he is trailing in recent polling. So in what can only be described as an act of desperation, Smith is running, perhaps, the slimiest television ad ever in the history of Oregon senatorial politics.
The Oregonian reports Smith asks rape victim to be in TV ad against foe.
Merkley spokesman Matt Canter called the TV ad — and another new Smith commercial on the Gillmore case — “slime and smear at its worst.”
In Smith’s despicable ad, he enlists Tiffany Edens, a well-known rape victim in Oregon, “to appear in an emotional TV ad” that falsely accuses Merkley of “failing to crack down on serious sex offenders.”
Here is the ad Gordon Smith approves: