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Posted on Monday, 10.06.08

TV ads turn nasty in Florida Senate race

The election is still a month away, but in state Sen. Jeff Atwater's coastal district, the TV airwaves have become a political war zone.

The campaigns and state parties have launched at least four attack ads in two weeks on behalf of either Atwater, a North Palm Beach Republican slated to become Senate president, or Linda Bird, his Democratic opponent from Fort Lauderdale.

The first shot by state Democrats gives Atwater the award for ''Best Insurance Hypocrite,'' accusing him of taking money from insurance companies and raising insurance rates in a 2006 vote.

Meanwhile, Atwater, who has a $2.5 million campaign chest, has spent more than $672,000 on TV ads since the start of the campaign.

He's also had help from the Florida Republican Party, which paid for an ad against Bird that uses statements from Democratic legislators to argue that she would raise taxes if elected.

Atwater also went on the defensive, releasing an ad calling the attacks on him ``shameless.''

Democrats responded by using the spot against him.

In the latest Democratic attack, a scientist with lab coat and pointer periodically interrupts the Atwater spot, telling viewers he's going to show them ``how to tell when a candidate is lying.''

-- BREANNE GILPATRICK

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