Democratic Senate Candidates Lock Horns Over Campaign Ad

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Maryland US Senate candidates Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards are fuming over campaign ads that briefly included President Obama. With early voting underway, the Democrats are accusing each other of misrepresentation.

Political reporter Pat Warren talked to both Edwards and Van Hollen Friday.

Both candidates are standing firm on opposite sides of the question: is it fair game to invoke the president in negative campaign ads?

The fact that the president was in an ad produced by a political action committee backing Donna Edwards drew fire from the White House. The PAC was asked to take the president out of the ad, and it did. Now Chris Van Hollen is using part of that ad in his campaign against Edwards.

His ad says that her ad was so untrue, the president asked her to pull it down.

Donna Edwards tells WJZ Van Hollen shouldn't be using the president either.

"I am disappointed. I mean, Mr. Van Hollen in fact challenged the Super PAC ad saying it used the president's image and his voice and then he uses that to attack me," Edwards said.

Van Hollen says its use serves a different purpose than the Edwards campaign's attack on him.

"Actually the little piece of the president is from their ad. We were reminding people that this was the deceptive ad the Super PAC put out. That was a clip from their own ad which the White House called out and we wanted to make it clear that was the ad the president said to pull down," Van Hollen said.

The Edwards PAC claims Van Hollen acted with the NRA to block gun control; the Van Hollen campaign ad discredits the PAC ad as inaccurate and misleading.

"I think it's completely unfair for him to characterize that as my ad and it was not. I have said I don't believe in using the president's image in my advertisement and he should not be using the president's image in his. He needs to take it down," she said.

Both campaigns stand by their positions.

Coming up next week on WJZ: There's a lot of talk this election and a lot of promises---but will anything change? WJZ wants to know what you think. Watch our special reports next week as Campaign 2016 coverage continues on WJZ.

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