In final days, political ads getting meaner

Lieberman is Nixonian.

Shays votes with religious extremists.

Farrell supports the Taliban.

With control of the House and Senate on the line, the mud is flying fast and furiously this election season. Negative advertisements paid for by the candidates, political parties and outside interest groups has flooded into Connecticut and it's almost impossible to avoid. Turn on the radio or television, open a letter or answer the telephone and you might be hit smack dab in the face with a dirty pie.

As bad as it seems, it could be worse. So that you don't have to, I've stepped into the political swamp to find the best of the worst.

Here goes: 1. In Ohio's 1st District, the National Republican Congressional Campaign attacks Democrat John Crawley claiming that as a City Councilman he voted to allow 7-year-olds to be tazored. The ad focuses in on a pig-tailed girl in a classroom with a shocked expression on her face while a narrator says: "Seven year olds to be tazed with 50,000 volts of electricity! John Crawley's judgement bad to bizarre." 2. The Republican National Committee looks to the future with a slick advertisement promoting America Weakly, a 2007 news magazine that will take you inside the Democrat-controlled Congress where President Bush faces impeachment, UN multinational forces patrol our borders, and tax cuts disappear. Act now and you get a free "weakly" football so you can play catch with John Kerry!

3. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

is running an ad in Connecticut that compares the Republican-led Congress to the ill-fated Titanic.

In the ad, a narrator blames Republicans for rising health care costs, record oil profits and escalating violence in Iraq.

""Republicans in Congress like Rob Simmons and Nancy Johnson continue to back George Bush. Before they let the president steer us into an iceberg maybe we should think about a new direction," the narrator says.

4. In Tennessee, Republicans are running a television ad that features satirical "man-on-the-street" interviews poking fun at Democratic candidate Harold Ford Jr.

"Ford's right, I do have too many guns," says a man dressed up like a hunter.

But mixed into the interviews is a blonde woman who says: "I met Harold at the Playboy party" and later returns to urge: "Harold, call me." In another ad, Republicans accuse Ford of partying "with Playboy Playmates in lingerie." Democrats claim the ad is racist. Ford, who black, is single and attended a Playboy party at last year's Super Bowl game.

5. In North Carolina, Republican Vernon Robinson has aired an eerie black and white television commercial that takes off on Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone." "Americans are under attack from Islamic extremists in every corner of the world. Homosexuals are mocking holy matrimony, and the lesbians and feminists are attacking everything sacred. Liberal judges have completely rewritten the Constitution," a narrator says.

"You can burn the American flag and kill a million babies a year but you can't post the 10 Commandments or say 'God' in public. Seven out of 10 black children are born out of wedlock and Jackson and Sharpton claim the answer is racial quotas. And the aliens are here but they didn't come in a spaceship they came across our unguarded Mexican border by the millions." Robinson then appears promising to send those realities back to the Twilight Zone if elected to Congress.

The commercial strangely ends with a shot of "The Beaver," actor Jerry Mathers, waving from the back of a 50s sedan.

6. After President Bush vetoed a bill to allow embryonic stem cell research, American Family Voices telephoned Connecticut 4th District voters to let them know that Rep. Christopher Shays was "voting with religious extremists instead of Nancy Reagan and the medical experts." The statement was false, Shays actually spoke out in favor of overriding the veto.

7. The National Republican Congressional Campaign sent out a mailing to 4th District households alleging that a group sympathetic to the Taliban was supporting Democrat Diane Farrell. Shays urged the NRCC to stop sending "this type of garbage" to district mailboxes.

8. In Ohio, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is tagging Republican Mike DeWine as a pal of President George Bush. As children playfully sing a version of "'The More We Get Together," the television commercial focuses on an unflattering photo of Bush and DeWine grinning together. In bold text, the ad claims DeWine likes to work together with George Bush increasing the national debt to $9 trillion and providing tax breaks to big oil and companies that move jobs overseas.

9. Ned Lamont, Connecticut's Democratic Senate candidate, put up a television commercial that shows former President Richard Nixon morphing into Joe Lieberman. Accompanying the image, are near-matching quotes as Nixon defends the Vietnam war and Lieberman the Iraq war.

"An announcement of a fixed timetable for our withdrawal would completely remove any incentive for the enemy to negotiate an agreement. They would simply wait for our troops to withdraw and then move in," Nixon said.

And, this Nixon gem: "The question facing us today is now that we are in the war what is the best way to end it." Peter Urban, who covers Washington, can be reached by e-mail at purban@ctpost.com.