The U.S. Senate race is Kentucky is heading into November much like it started — a bare-knuckled contest with Democrats again trying to define Republican Rand Paul by dredging up his past.
The race has tightened over the past weeks, but such a strategy already appears to be backfiring as one of the biggest cheerleaders for Democratic candidate Jack Conway denounced his recent TV ad questioning Mr. Paul's religious beliefs.
The 30-second ad that began airing last week says that while attending Baylor University, Mr. Paul was in a secret society that mocked Christianity and that he forced a female student to bow to a god named "Aqua Buddha."
The Paul campaign posted a response ad Monday titled "False Witness," with the narrator asking: "What kind of shameful politician would sink so low as to bear false witness against another man just to win an election?"
Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, said Monday the Conway ad was "very dangerous" and "came close to the line" of being inappropriate.
"Candidates who are behind at the end reach, and sometimes they overreach," she said on MSNBC-TV's "Morning Joe" program. "This ad is a very dangerous ad because it reaches back to college. ... I think the ad came close to the line."
Mrs. McCaskill made the comments about 24 hours after she branded the "tea party"-backed Mr. Paul an "extreme candidate" and predicting Mr. Conway, the state's attorney general, would come from behind to win the race.
"Ask Elizabeth Dole what might happen," Republican strategist Elliott Curson said Monday about the Conway ad.
Mr. Curson was referring to a TV ad Mrs. Dole ran in the final weeks of her 2008 North Carolina U.S. Senate re-election bid that questioned Democratic challenger Kay Hagan's ties to an atheist political group.
Ms. Hagan, who was an official at a Presbyterian church in Greensboro, defeated Mrs. Dole, who was seeking a second term.
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