North Carolina--Dole-Hagan TV Ad Brawl

One of the so-called 'battleground states' in this campaign has been North Carolina, where Barack Obama seems to have made inroads into this traditionally Republican state.

And at the center of the fight is the U.S. Senatorial race between Elizabeth Dole, R-NC, and challenger Kay Hagan.

Hagan has been running unusually personal attack ads against Dole, aided by the Democratic Senatorial Election Committee, which has put up the funds for many of the attacks.

Finally, Dole fought back with an ad accusing Hagan of cavorting with and accepting money from a group of atheists whose values are antithetical to that of most North Carolinians.

Hagan went ballistic, accusing Dole of character assassination, attacking her 'Christian faith,' and descending into the sewer of politics.

All of this makes for the appearance that Hagan is so thin-skinned that although she can dish it out with no problem, she can't take it.

Particularly irksome to Hagan is her contention that Dole claimed in the ad that Hagan is 'godless.'

In actuality the ad does not say anything of the kind. The ad says the group in question that contributed to Hagan's campaign is godless.

Apparently Hagan traveled to Massachusetts to meet with and accept campaign donations from a group of atheists that refer to themselves as 'secularists.' Dole highlighted this meeting in the ad.

But Hagan claims the meeting never took place and that she never took donations from the group.

She is also suing Dole for defamation of character.

Attorneys for Senator Dole say that the information in the ad is 100% factual and that they have the documentation to prove it.

But in a TV ad in which Hagan responds to Dole's claims, she never denies the meeting took place nor does she deny accepting campaign donations from the group. Rather, she whines about 'gutter politics' and defends herself by saying she was once a Sunday School teacher in a Presbyterian Church.

None of this, of course, addresses the issue of the donations from the group in question.

One thing is for sure, however. When you make attack ads the focus of your campaign as Hagan has done, you can rest assured the chickens WILL come home to roost.