Part Three in battle of the ads: Rural roots

After a string of stinging controversies about his television re-election ads, U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Pendleton) finally came out with one on Friday that should have been the least controversial of all. But it's led to a great debate among Oregon's U.S. Senate candidates over who's a better representative for rural Oregon.

In the ad, Smith praises the rural Oregonian way of life, talking about his rural roots in Pendleton, a small town in the eastern part of the state.

"No one loves the land more than the farmers, loggers and ranchers who care for it," he says in the ad.

Smith campaign spokeswoman Lindsay Gilbride pointed to state House Speaker and U.S Senate candidate Jeff Merkley's (D-Portland) action at the statehouse to close the Office of Rural Policy, which was supposed to be a liaison between rural communities and government representatives. "Jeff Merkley has consistently left behind rural Oregon," she said.

Merkley's campaign responded with its own video Monday, accusing Smith of being disingenuous regarding his advocacy for his rural brethren. Merkley, who has rural roots of his own in Myrtle Creek, a southern Oregon town with a population of 3,419, charged the Smith campaign with failing to go to bat for rural Oregon and the timber communities earlier this month when he failed to find any support among fellow Republicans for a $250 million timber payments bill constructed by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Springfield). The loss of those timber federal funds have led to drastic cuts in communities throughout rural areas Smith says he is an advocate for.

"There is no one in the U.S Senate that is a stronger advocate for ranchers and loggers than Gordon Smith," Gilbride said. A similar claim was made in a new TV ad called "Home," where Smith says: "Some say lock the land up and the people out. No way."

When pressed about what exactly Smith meant by that statement, Gilbride said: "We should not shut down our forests, shut down our rivers, shutdown our ranch land. Senator Smith advocates for balance between protecting the environment and preserving the rural way or life and rural economies."

Merkley's video responds by accusing Smith of not being an advocate for the environment or for rural people when he cast a vote on Nov. 17, 2005, voting not to offer a refundable tax credit for the energy costs of farmers and ranchers.

Merkley's ad ended with a satellite photo of what is supposed to be Smith's very large, very suburban house in Bethesda, Md.

"That is not his house," Gilbride said. "There's no putting green at his house."

See Smith's ad here.

See Merkley's rebuttal here.