Special Interest Campaign Ads | Video

Jessica Roose | 7/5/2012

The political season seems to be getting longer all the time. Months before the general election, we`re already being inundated with political advertising. But many of those commercials are not produced or paid for by the candidates. Those ads are funded by special interest groups in Washington DC and they attack candidates on both the right and the left.

We`ve all seen the ads, but what you might not realize, is that they aren`t being put out by the candidates.

"Twenty years ago, the court decided a case called Buckley vs. Valeo. And I know this is kind of boring legalese, but Buckley vs. Valeo said speech is money and it was the beginning of this type of thing," said Democratic Senate Candidate Heidi Heitkamp.

The candidates have absolutely no control of the content in the ads that are broadcast on their behalf.

"We both take a similar risk that they are going to represent something or say something that we would never say," Heitkamp said.

Republican Crossroads GPS has put out four commercials and have spent nearly $400,000 to try and keep Heitkamp out of the Senate.

"We know that we`re going to be grossly outspent. I mean there`s just no doubt about it. There`s no way that we`re going to spend more than Karl Rove can raise from billionaires. So our position is to really get out and meet as many North Dakotans as we can."

Even so, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has put out two ads on her behalf targeting her opponent Rick Berg. They have spent about $170,000.

There`s still a lot of time left before the election which means you`re going see a lot more of these types of ads in the coming months.

We reached out to Rick Berg`s campaign to get reaction to these ads and he was unavailable for comment, but he did say through his press aide that he believes North Dakotans will agree with the Berg message, that President Obama`s policies are wrong for North Dakota and America.

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