Issues: special election

The latest dust-up in the special election campaign for New York’s 20th district House seat, which we’ve written about here and here, involves the National Republican Trust PAC. It’s a twisted tale.
We’ll start on March 13, when Politico.com’s Ben Smith reported that the National Republican Trust PAC was spending $190,000 to run an ad in the district attacking Democratic candidate Scott Murphy.

But on March 16, the Albany Times-Union reported that the ad had been pulled after running just twice.

The latest ad from New York State Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco, a Republican, says that the Albany Times-Union and FactCheck.org have called Democratic challenger Scott Murphy’s advertising "unfair" and "false," respectively. The two men are vying for an open House seat representing New York’s 20th congressional district. The ad doesn’t specify which "attack" the Times-Union was calling "unfair," or which claim from Murphy’s advertising we called "false." Here are the details:
It’s true that we and the Times-Union called out the Murphy campaign for claiming that Tedisco wouldn’t say whether he supports caps on salaries for executives of companies receiving bailout money (he has said he supports the idea).

Two days ago on our main site, we analyzed several ads in the special election to replace now-Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in New York’s 20th congressional district. But it looks like we missed some. Our Country Deserves Better PAC (a group we’ve chided in the past for an ad echoing claims found in false chain e-mails) has released a pair of TV spots in the district, attacking Democratic candidate Scott Murphy.
One ad says that Murphy has a "shameful record of attacking our military men and women":

The ad also says that Murphy "smeared our military in an editorial he co-wrote"

Since President Obama plucked at least three advisers and cabinet members from elected positions, and some of those positions were then filled by other elected officials, we have a spate of special elections to watch as these empty posts are filled. Of particular note is the 20th House district in New York that was vacated when Kirsten Gillibrand was appointed to replace Hillary Clinton as senator. The district had traditionally trended Republican before Gillibrand’s win in 2006,