A new TV ad attacking Congressman Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, violates TVW's copyright and user agreement and needs to be stop airing, says Mike Bay, TVW's vice president of programming.

The ad from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee uses what Bay says is a clip from a TVW recording of Reichert speaking in May to the annual conference of the Mainstream Republicans of Washington.

Bay said that people who purchase TVW tapes agree to a policy that says "you cannot edit it or use it for commercial or political purposes." He said he has called the DCCC to ask them to stop airing the ad and is waiting back to hear from someone in D.C.

The ad opens with a shot of Reichert speaking at the Cascade Conference:

Reichert: "So when the leadership comes to me and says 'Dave, we need you to take a vote over here because we want to protect you and keep this majority,' I do it."

Narrator: "And when they told Dave Reichert to give billions to big oil he did it;
and to vote against cracking down on price gouging, he did it. Three times.

Now we now why.

Dave Reichert, another vote for Bush's agenda.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.

The Reichert campaign issued a statement earlier today saying that the quote was taken out of context.

Congressman Reichert stands up to leadership and the President when their interests aren't in the best interests of the Eighth District," said Kimberly Cadena, Reichert's campaign spokesperson. "It's shameless that Darcy and the DCCC has taken a portion of Congressman Reichert's explanation of his stands against leadership out of context.

Here's the rest of what Reichert said in that portion of his brief speech: (Note: I mistakenly left off the earlier portion of his comments which I transcribed from TVW and have added that to this transcript. I think it gives the full context for the quote.)

I've been to district meetings here on this side, in my district, where people say, 'Why in the world would I vote for you. It's just like voting for a Democrat, for cying out loud. I'm going to vote Libertarian.' And I said, 'You know what sir, that'd be a huge mistake and here's why.'

...

I wanted to explain to this person how things work a ltitle bit back in Washington, D.C., and why certain votes have to be taken.

Sometimes the leadership comes to me and says, `Dave, we want you to vote a certain way.' Now, they know I can do that over here; that I have to do that over here. In other districts, that's not a problem, but here I have to be able to be very flexible in where I place my votes.

Because the big picture here is, keep this seat, keep the majority, keep the country moving forward with Republican ideals, especially on the budget, on protecting our troops, protecting this country. Right? Being responsible with taxpayer dollars. All of those things. That's the big picture. Not the vote I place on ANWR that you may not agree with, or the vote that I place on protecting salmon.

You have to be flexible. So when the leadership comes to me and says 'Dave, we need you to take a vote over here because we want to protect you and keep this majority,' I do it. There are some times when I say 'No, I won't.' There are times they have things come to the floor like Schiavo. I was one of five Republicans who voted with Democrats on Schiavo because it was the right thing to do. Government should not have been involved in that decision. Period.

UPDATE: DCCC communications director Bill Burton told me:

"We have heard from TVW and we are very carefully weighing all their concerns."

He said the Democrats got the tape from a "publicly available source." They didn't purchase the tape from TVW. Bay said anyone who buys a tape agrees not to use it for commercial or political purposes.

There may be a fair use argument to be made for a short clip off of TVW. But so far I can't recall anyone else using TVW tape in a political ad.

Here's the ad in question.

I'm a little behind on this, but Josh Feit got something interesting when Rudy Giuliani was in town for Mike McGavick. Feit asked the former New York mayor about the assault-weapon ban, and Giuliani said he has changed his mind and no longer supports it.

Well, here's how Giuliani answered my question: "The assault-weapons ban is something I supported in the past." Since he supports McGavick now, I guess "special-interest politics" — or more aptly, partisan politics — have swept aside what he once saw as a matter of "life or death."

What's most galling about Giuliani's flip-flop on assault weapons is that his pro-McGavick stump speech was squarely focused on homeland security. "We need senators who understand that we have to be on offense against terrorism," he said. "Cantwell's ambiguous support for the effort against terrorism probably concerns me more than anything else."

Because Giuliani may run for president in 2008 this little tidbit may continue to resonate. Here's what John Tabin wrote at the the American Spectator's website:

The self-righteous ignorance that drives so much gun control advocacy never ceases to amuse. Josh Feit's latest column for the Seattle alternative weekly the Stranger is a classic of the genre.

It seems that as he stumps for fellow Republicans and paves the way for a potential presidential run, Rudy Giuliani is prudently backing off from his history of anti-gun demagoguery. Feit is hopping mad.

Feit responds to Tabin on The Slog.

The Committee to Abolish Washington State Estate Tax is up on the air with lots of little TV commercials calling for repeal of the state tax. Dennis Falk, the sponsor of I-920, said he is running a 5 second commercial on three Seattle stations a total of more than 200 times before the election.

The ad shows a cartoon of a grave stone engraved "The government took all my savings" and a narrator says, "Death should not be a taxable event. Abolish death taxes. Vote yes on I-920." (I updated this after seeing the ad.)

I've heard about the ads but haven't caught one yet.

"You've got to be quick," Falk said. He said the campaign, one of two committees pushing for passage of 920, wanted to do something different.

"The general public, including myself, get tired of those one minute ads. You know what happens when they come on? Mute. Time to get a piece of pie."

When I can get a link to the ad I'll add it here.

Also I added a link below to the first TV ad from the opposition campaign to I-920.

I watched some of the debate again last night. I won't pick a winner between Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, Republican Mike McGavick and Libertarian Bruce Guthrie. I'm not sure there was one. All three candidates seemed to stick to what they wanted to accomplish and all did a pretty good job at it.

Cantwell ignored her opponents for the most part, speaking directly to voters about her record. McGavick turned nearly every answer into a criticism of that record. Guthrie showed himself to be well-spoken and well-versed in condemning the two major parties.

There's lots of coverage this morning with few surprises or disagreements about what was newsworthy in the hour-long debate.

In The Seattle Times, Alex Fryer points out what struck me at the time as an odd remark from McGavick.

While trying to strike a middle ground on abortion rights, McGavick said Cantwell "marches at the front of the NARAL parade." NARAL Pro Choice America is the nation's largest reproductive-rights advocacy group.

He started the answer by positioning himself in the middle, but the NARAL comment came off sounding to the right of the middle.

Mostly, Cantwell did not respond to McGavick's barbs. But, during an answer about the budget, she asked, "Do you want to send somebody to Washington who is willing to cut thousands of employees off his payroll and take a cash bonus as a reward for that?"

McGavick clearly was on the offensive, says Jerry Cornfield in The Herald.

With each answer, McGavick sought to create a seam in which to insert a critique of Cantwell on issues including Iraq, Social Security, abortion and immigration.

Though McGavick and Cantwell only had one previous debate, the face-to-face meeting yesterday lost some of its drama with a format that didn't allow for the candidates to question each other and by the presence of Guthrie who physically separated the two major candidates, and seemed to garner a lot of ink in today's coverage.

Writes Paul Sand in The News Tribune:

Guthrie's answers mostly tacked politically to Cantwell's left, including his response to drilling for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. He said he would support giving the land to an environmental group.

"Do you think the Sierra Club would want to drill in ANWR?" he asked.

Dave Ammons of the AP (via The Columbian) says Guthrie "provided the fireworks and humor, a counterpoint to well-rehearsed soundbites from the two mainline candidates."

He staked out left-of-center positions that could erode some of Democrat Cantwell's base, strenuously opposing the war in Iraq, supporting gay marriage and decriminalization of marijuana and blistering both major parties for a variety of ills, including the big federal deficit.

In the PI, Neil Modie declares Guthrie the winner of the debate:

It gave the polite, well-spoken Libertarian a forum for an earnest presentation of his sometimes out-of-the-mainstream views, a gift of TV exposure and equal footing with two major-party contenders that a third-party hopeful rarely gets. In the process, it probably boosted his potential for peeling away votes from the two major candidates, more likely from Cantwell's Democratic base, given his platform: anti-war, pro-gay-marriage, pro-immigration and pro-marijuana-legalization.

(Modie must have run out of space before he could say who sponsored the debate. It was KING 5, the Seattle City Club and The Seattle Times.)

(CLARIFICATION: Modie left a comment objecting to the line I wrote that said "Modie declares Guthrie the winner of the debate." You can read his whole message in the comments, but I wanted to be sure to add his clarification here:

I trust that other readers recognized that I was saying merely that Guthrie probably gained the most from the debate because it gave him exposure he had never had before, and probably never will again - and not, as you mis-concluded that I concluded, that he "won" the debate on substance.)

Guthrie also put in a plug for other minor candidates, says The Olympian's Brad Shannon.

And he complained politely, yet conspicuously, that the Greens' Dixon and Independent Robin Adair also should have been let in.

...

Guthrie called his appearance a "tipping point" in a bid to build a viable third party to challenge the Democrats and Republicans.
What effect Guthrie's sudden exposure might have on the Senate race outcome is unclear. McGavick said Guthrie was clearly thoughtful but had ideas out of the mainstream.

Cantwell said the Libertarian did well, but she downplayed the potential of Guthrie drawing away Democratic votes with his support for Iraq withdrawal and legalizing medical marijuana.

Stefan Sharkansky has a brief review, and actually found something good to say about Cantwell. (It comes right after he calls her a "plastic partisan.")

Outside the Beltway says Guthrie's effort shows Noblese Oblige.

Stilwell, who is well known here at PoP, does a quick summary for the Northwest Progressive Institute Official Blog.

And Blog Reload focuses on the drug war portion of the debate.

For a libertarian, Guthrie gives a pretty tame endorsement for ending the drug war, but it's certainly better than what Cantwell or McGavick have to say.

UPDATE: Eric Earling has some thoughts on how the three candidates did last night.