3rd District update: Paulsen debuts attack ad, Boston Dems pony up, and a Madia median media shocker!

Here’s a 3rd Congressional District campaign update: State Rep. Erik Paulsen flashes some leg as he launches the contest’s first candidate-approved attack ad, Ashwin Madia returns to his hometown of Boston to raise campaign cash and Republicans make media hay with video of a Madia volunteer pulling Paulsen signs from a roadside right-of-way.

New Paulsen TV spot: Ashwin bad, Erik good

Late last week, State Rep. Erik Paulsen launched the first attack ad sponsored by a candidate’s campaign in the contest to replace U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad (R) — in apparent response to recent ads from outside groups attacking Paulsen. The first two-thirds or so of the 30-second spot, titled simply “Taxes,” slams Paulsen’s DFL opponent, Ashwin Madia, for wanting to raise income taxes as well as other taxes on everything from capital gains (and that’s “savings, investments, seniors”) to families and small businesses.

Madia’s campaign was quick to call Paulsen on his new ad’s negativity and his own tax record. But what seems most out-of-bounds, especially amid autumn temps, is the amount of skin Paulsen chose to show. (NSFW? That depends on your workplace’s policies on short pants and exposure of the male thigh.)

A quick ATM run — to Boston

In 1775, Paul Revere rode his horse from Boston to raise the alarm. On Sunday, Ashwin Madia rode from Plymouth (Minn.) into Boston — his birthplace and childhood hometown — to raise cash. His destination: a fundraiser event at a Boston bar that came about via Madia’s introduction at the Democratic National Convention to (among other Beantowners) Boston City Councilor Mike Ross and Massachusetts state Rep. Linda Dorcena Forry. As reported in Bay Windows, a New England GLBT news outlet, Madia’s campaign manager, Stuart Rosenberg, has worked for both Ross and Forry.

By his own account, Madia’s immigrant parents arrived in Boston from Mumbai, India, more than 30 years ago with just $19 in their pockets — and spent $11 of it on champagne. That wasn’t an option at Sunday’s fundraiser — the Lir Irish Pub & Restaurant had 37 beers but only six wines and no champagne to offer the 39–50 people that a pub worker told the Minnesota Independent were expected to attend, with donation levels ActBlue said ranged from $250–$2,300.

Lurkin’ at Perkins pays off big for Brodkorb

Paulsen campaign worker (and onetime campaign spokesperson) Michael Brodkorb says he was dining with another Paulsen staffer at a Perkins restaurant in Maple Grove when he saw a woman remove Paulsen signs from what she says, in a video he circulated afterward, was the public right-of-way. In the video the woman returns the signs when approached by the Paulsen staffers.

Picking up on the story were KSTP-TV (which called it “the campaign’s first controversy”), the Star Tribune, and Fox 9‘s Tom Lyden – who knows a thing or two about taking stuff himself and who like the Strib identified the Paulsen sign-puller as the spouse of Madia spokesperson Dan Pollock. The Madia campaign responded with this mea culpa:

It has come to our attention that a campaign volunteer removed two Paulsen lawn signs from public property. The volunteer happens to also be the spouse of one of our campaign staffers. Since learning of this, we have reminded all staff and volunteers of our standing policy to not touch Paulsen campaign lawn signs or any lawn signs regardless of where they are placed. In addition, they have been reminded that the proper course of action is to call the authorities if they believe that lawn signs may be placed on public property. We apologize to the Paulsen campign for our volunteer’s mistake.

Was it a stakeout? If you’re Paulsen pals picking Perkinses, Maple Grove’s is a 25-minute haul from Paulsen’s Eden Prairie HQ, Joe Bodell estimates, while the Maple Grove Perkins is one mile west of Madia headquarters along 73rd Ave. N. Like Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin driving past hospitals to give birth at her hometown clinic, staffers at the Paulsen campaign office would pass at least three Perkins restaurants en route to the Maple Grove Perkins.

To the disappointment of the Squeegee Squad, Republicans on the long march between National Sports Center parking lots and the Sept. 19 McCain-Palin rally at an airport hangar in Blaine, Minn., paid comparatively scant attention to signs in the public right-of-way along Radisson Road.