Ad Watch in AK-SEN: Mark Begich (D)

In one of the most hotly contested U.S. Senate races in the nation, incumbent Ted Stevens (who has been in the Senate since 1968) will most likely be in a tight race in Alaska with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. (Both candidates have primaries to go through.) Begich comes from the mold of former Democratic Governor Tony Knowles, who lost a Senate race four years ago to junior Senator Lisa Murkowski.

Begich came out with his first ad a few weeks ago, and it is (admittedly) a good ad that starts off by talking about his father who was a Congressman that went missing in a plane accident in the early '70s:

From the outside, Begich looks like a new, fresh candidate that came out of nowhere to be mayor of Alaska's largest city. The fact is that Begich has been a political player with the Democratic Party since the early '80s, when he worked for then Mayor Tony Knowles, and then served on the Anchorage Assembly (city council) for three terms. With a long political history comes a long list of deeds.

Here's a great "ad watch" response from the NRSC, providing some responses to Mark Begich's ad and his time as politician in Anchorage:

It gets more interesting because while Begich has decided to spend his money on TV ads, his Democratic primary opponent, Ray Metcalfe (who was a former Republican legislator and founder of the now defunct Republican Moderate Party of Alaska) has decided to spend his money on a bus to take people on a "tour of Mark Begich's Anchorage". Metcalfe explains in his own words in a local NBC news affiliate story:

"My campaign has purchased a bus, and we're going to start advertising our three-hour tour," Metcalfe said. "We're going to take people around and show them how real estate is used to launder money into the pockets of politicians. We're going to show them the transactions; explain them. It gets pretty hard to deny when you see it."

I encourage everybody to watch the Stevens vs. Begich race closely this fall. We'll see what Stevens can do without much help from the national Republican organization, and what Begich can do with anticipated millions coming in from the DNC and DSCC along with the possible coattails of the Obama campaign opening up multiple field offices in the state.

Thoughts and comments please!