Udall responds to Club for Growth attack ad

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tom Udall is out today with a new TV ad responding to an attack ad unveiled this weekend by the Club for Growth.

Calling the group an out-of-state ally of his Republican opponent, Steve Pearce, the Udall campaign announced its ad today in a news release. Here’s the 30-second spot:

“A Washington special interest wants to pick our senator,” the ad’s narrator states. “First they falsely attacked Heather Wilson (Pearce’s primary opponent). Now it’s Tom Udall.”

“On energy, Tom Udall says do it all. More domestic drilling, including some offshore. Nuclear power. And alternative energy like wind and solar,” the narrator states. “Steve Pearce voted against alternative energy nine times. That’s why he got hundreds of thousand dollars from Big Oil.”

The Club for Growth endorsed Pearce in the primary, bundled hundreds of thousands of dollars for his campaign and spent hundreds of thousands more on the ads attacking Wilson. The group is spending $150,000 to run the ad attacking Udall.

“The same ideological billionaires from Texas, New York and New Jersey are back with more fraudulent and misleading attack ads — this time attempting to smear Tom Udall’s record of doing what’s right,” Udall campaign spokeswoman Marissa Padilla said in the news release. “Steve Pearce’s out-of-state accomplices, whose Swift Boat-style ads drove Senator (Pete) Domenici to spurn their misleading and unfair attacks in the primary, are once again trying to prop up his struggling campaign and influence this election.”

Padilla was referring to Domenici’s statement during the primary that the group was “unfairly distorting (Wilson’s) record.” The Udall news release also aimed to capitalize on this primary-election quote from Wilson:

“Billionaires from New York and New Jersey are trying to buy Senator Domenici’s seat in order to satisfy their narrow ideological agenda, and they have found a perfect accomplice in Steve Pearce,” she said.

The Pearce campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Update, 4:45 p.m.

Pearce spokesman Brian Phillips released this statement:

“This is another attempt by Tom Udall to divert attention away from his embarrassing record of opposing domestic drilling, cutting funding for investments in nuclear energy and raising taxes,” Phillips said. “He is running, ducking, dodging and performing more flip-flops than an Olympic gymnast. Meanwhile, New Mexico families are still struggling to afford energy and food and Tom and the far-left extremists continue to stand in the way of solutions.”