Howard Berman And Brad Sherman Take Their $9 Million Slapfight To Cable TV

By Gene Maddaus Wed., Oct. 17 2012 at 6:11 PM

Let's settle this like gentlemen: With dueling cable ad buys

Howard Berman and Brad Sherman are taking their $9 million intraparty slapfight to the airwaves, with dueling attack ads.

The Berman folks are newly energized by the sight of Sherman manhandling their candidate at last week's Pierce College debate, and shouting "Do you want to get into this?"

Having trailed Sherman by double digits, the Berman side sees that moment as a turning point in the race, and they're looking to capitalize on it with an ad they call "Unhinged."

Take a look:

The Berman folks say this ad will be running as part of a "heavy buy" on Valley cable TV.

The Sherman campaign fired back with its own ad highlighting Berman's fondness for overseas trips:

Looks like the Sherman campaign went to a certain amount of effort to get cardboard Berman cutouts in front of exotic locales.

The Berman campaign has already responded to this issue, putting out a letter last week from former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and George Shultz defending Berman's trips and attacking Sherman:

"Nothing could be more misleading, in this global era, than to suggest that members of Congress should not travel when there is important work to be accomplished. That is especially true in the case of Rep. Howard Berman, who is both a tireless worker for America and a superb advocate for our nation's interests."

Less than three weeks to go! Let's get into this!

Tags:

anger management, Brad Sherman, cable TV, Howard Berman, junkets

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tedlawrence37

I should add for anyone who wants to know about Berman's travel, here is an op-ed by renowned historian Norman Ornstein which I think covers it all pretty well.http://www.rollcall.com/issues/58_30/Howard-Bermans-Travel-Should-Get-Credit-Not-Knocks-218273-1.html

tedlawrence37

Since Berman didn't have a single negative ad in the primary, I suspect you had already decided who to support. Sherman's ad's only have substantive arguments if you don't look into the facts (ie, virtually all of Berman's trips were connected to his long membership on the House Foreign Affairs committee where newspapers have called him a leader since the 80's) But the real question for voters is if they want someone in a legislative seat that can't get along with his colleagues because of his temperment and lack of work ethic. I thought Sherman would be good in Congress, but the fact is he likes playing the big shot in public (so he holds a lot of town halls, but never meets with individual constituents) but in terms of the less prestigious parts of his job like reading his bills and finding solutions to our problems, he is virtually non-existent.

pny.anna

Saw both these ads today and tomorrow I"m sending in my absentee for Brad Sherman. Howard Berman's new commercial is a smear campaign like he tried to do in the primary. Although I'm not a fan of Sherman's negative campaigning, at least his ads have some substantive arguments where as Berman's ads are just attacks on Sherman's personality. Sherman can count on my vote.