The National Republican Congressional Committee has been airing ads attacking Brad Ellsworth, trying to paint him as a zombie who will serve his liberal San Francisco liberal masters if elected to Congress. As a counterattack, the Ellsworth campaign has come up with an interesting approach to turning one of Hostettler’s traditional “positives” into a “negative.”

Hostettler traditionally foregoes PAC money and raises very little money of his own with which to campaign. Normally, this is seen as a good thing. Not beholden to special interests, close to his constituents, etc. etc. Trouble is that, as a consequence of his minimal campaign funds, he owes a lot of his electoral activity to money spent by the National Republican Congressional Committee which uses money that is decidedly more tainted than the money raised by Hostettler personally. Ellsworth is raising ads that suggest Hostettler shouldn’t get a free ride simply because the money spent on behalf of his campaign is first laundered through the NRCC. Instead, the Ellsworth campaign is attempting to tag Hostettler with all of the sins of the NRCC, links to convicted Republican felon superlobbyist Jack Abramoff and the spreading scandal involving Congressmen such as convicted Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA), indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), and convicted Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH). (See the Grand Old Docket for a rundown of criminal activity involving prominent politicians.)

James Wensits, writing for the South Bend Tribune, has a story reporting that a Republican polling outfit by the name of Mercury Public Affairs claims that Chocola has a 5% lead over Donnelly, specifically, their numbers have Chocola up 45.5% versus 40.5% with 13.9% undecided. The sample included 39.7% Republicans, 37% Democrats, and 18.2% independent. (Which, out of a sample of 300 people, means 119 Republicans, 111 Democrats, and 70 independents.)

This contrasts with the poll numbers in another story written by Mr. Wensits featuring the WSBT/South Bend Tribune poll (conducted by Research 2000 of Rockville Maryland) sampling 400 likely voters, showing Donnelly ahead 50% to 42% with 8% undecided and a 5% margin of error.

Both pollsters “stand by their numbers.” I didn’t see the break down of voter affiliation in the South Bend Tribune poll. In any case, if conventional wisdom holds up, Chocola is in some trouble even with his poll numbers. He’s below 50% approval and there are 13% undecideds. The conventional wisdom is that undecideds typically break significantly toward the challenger.

An article from Mary Beth Schneider indicates that Attorney General Steve Carter  has sued a California-based group called the “Electronic Freedom Fund” for automated phone calls attacking IN-09 Democratic Congressional candidate Baron Hill.

The group has apparently agreed to stop making the calls, but Carter has said that the State will continue to seek an injunction against the “Electronic Freedom Fund” in a Brown County Court. Carter says that the group said that their vendor said that the calls were “legal so long as they were placed from out of state.” Where they got that, I don’t know. The relevant statute is IC 24-5-14 which states:

A caller may not use or connect to a telephone line an automatic dialing-announcing device unless:
(1) the subscriber has knowingly or voluntarily requested, consented to, permitted, or authorized receipt of the message; or
(2) the message is immediately preceded by a live operator who obtains the subscriber’s consent before the message is delivered.

Violating the law constitutes a deceptive act under IC 24-5-0.5 which means that the attorney general can bring an action. An individual subjected to the violation may also bring suit personally and cash in a little bit. But, if the Attorney General decides to be hard core about this, he could really bring some cash into the State’s coffers under IC 24-5-0.5-8:

Sec. 8. A person who commits an incurable deceptive act is subject to a civil penalty of a fine of not more than five hundred dollars ($500) for each violation. The attorney general, acting in the name of the state, has the exclusive right to petition for recovery of such a fine, and this fine may be recovered only in an action brought under section 4(c) of this chapter.

In the definitions section, we find that “‘Incurable deceptive act’ means a deceptive act done by a supplier as part of a scheme, artifice, or device with intent to defraud or mislead.”

I’d say there is a pretty strong argument to be made that the calls were intended to mislead voters about Baron Hill’s voting record. For example, I’d be surprised if a court would agree that the “Electronic Freedom Fund” was accurately characterizing Hill’s voting record when they state that “Baron Hill voted to allow the sale of a broad range of violent and sexually explicit material to minors.”

I haven’t heard how many automated calls were made, but it wouldn’t take long before $500 per call started adding up to some real money, even for an organization bankrolled by Bob Perry, the Houston millionaire responsible for the “Swiftboat Veterans For Truth” lies about John Kerry’s military record that caused Kerry so much trouble when he was running against George Bush.