In what might be an effort to take advantage of voter sentiment against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) while her presidential campaign is still alive, the National Republican Senatorial Committee released a Web ad this week tying Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) to Clinton’s “HillaryCare” health care plans.

The new ad is entitled “Where’s Mary Landrieu on HillaryCare?” and it implies that a vote for Landrieu — who has not made any endorsement in the Democratic presidential primary — is a vote for a Clinton health care plan that would increase withholdings on worker paychecks.

No mention of Sen. Barrack Obama (D-Ill.), who won the Bayou State’s presidential primary by 21 points, is made in the NRSC’s new ad.

“Your paycheck. After state, local, federal, Medicare, Social Security, there’s just not much left,” the narrator in the ad says. “Under HillaryCare, you may take home even less. … Where is Mary Landrieu on HillaryCare? She votes with Hillary 83 percent of the time.”

Landrieu’s race against state Treasurer John Kennedy (R) presents the only real opportunity for the GOP to pick up a seat in the Senate this cycle, and the NRSC seems to be savoring the opportunity to go on the offensive. The committee had been attacking the two-term Senator and her record well before Kennedy even officially entered the race late last fall.
— John McArdle