I don’t understand why Mike Beebe is drawing attention to Asa Hutchinson‘s new television ads by criticizing them.

It may be “shameful” to use children in a political ad, and Beebe may be so genuinely outraged that he just had to say something.

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But remember the “swift boat” ads against John Kerry in 2004? That wasn’t a large ad buy, but the ads got plenty of free broadcast time when they became a campaign issue, because they were continuously replayed on the news.

Hutchinson’s campaign has far less money in the bank than Beebe’s, but now Beebe has given Hutchinson’s attack ad more attention than it otherwise would have had.

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