Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) continued his scorched-earth strategy in his reelection contest against Sharron Angle, releasing an ad on Monday declaring that the Tea-Party-backed candidate once sided with domestic violence abusers, "not the abused."
Narrated by a local law enforcement official, the spot goes as follows:
"Imagine you've been abused by your spouse. You get a restraining order and move your family to Nevada thinking you'll be safe. In the state assembly, Sharron Angle voted to prevent restraining orders from other states from being enforced in Nevada. It would have made Nevada a safe haven from domestic abusers. Thankfully other legislators weren't so extreme because Sharron Angle sided with the abuser, not the abused."
The ad is the latest in a series of truly tough-hitting spots launched by the Reid campaign ever since Angle emerged as his Republican opponent, in a strategy that seems to consist of putting the spotlight almost every day on one or another outlandish or extreme Angle position.
The charges in the most recent spot stem from a vote Angle cast in 2001 against AB581, a bill that required Nevada courts to enforce protection orders dealing with domestic violence offenders from out of state. Angle was one of nine assembly members to oppose the measure (which passed by a 31-9 vote). Her campaign has insisted that she agreed with the spirit of the law but had "concerns with the execution."
When asked about the ad being run by Reid, Angle's spokesperson Jarrod Agen offered the following response:
"Harry Reid has released four different ads in the last five days all with different messages. That's a sign that the Reid campaign is struggling to gain traction. Yesterday's Mason-Dixon poll shows that most independent voters blame Obama and Reid for the economy, which is a major problem for Reid. His latest attempt at fear mongering is just another ill-conceived effort to distract voters from the main issue of this race, which is the broken economy in Nevada."
Already, however, the vote on AB581 has come to haunt her campaign. Prior to the latest ad, various law enforcement agencies within Nevada decided to endorse the Senate Majority Leader in part because of Angle's position on that 2001 bill.