UPDATED The knives are out in the 3rd Congressional District race: A new Ashwin Madia attack ad answers Republican state Rep. Erik Paulsen’s; a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee mailing reaches with a strip-club charge; and a Paulsen stand-in plays up Madia’s marital and residential status (single, renter).

The Madia ad, titled “Everyone Else,” responds to a Paulsen commercial from late last week that attacked Madia on taxes. “Everyone Else” knocks down Paulsen’s charges with the same spinning graphics Paulsen’s ad used and throws in punches on education cuts, offshore corporations and political appointee pay raises for good measure.

In the first parry of a news conference duel, Paulsen stand-in state Sen. Geoff Michel, R-Edina, attacked Madia as a carpet-bagging, childless, apartment-dwelling un-suburban bachelor. Play the 17-minute MPR audio and read transcript excerpts at the bottom of this post. (Madia will appear at his own news conference this afternoon. See more MnIndy coverage to come: story and video.)

Meanwhile, a pair of glossy Democratic Congression Campaign Commitee mailings earned a failing grade from KSTP’s Tom Hauser, who called their charges of strip-club funds seeping into Paulsen campaign coffers “among the most over the top and outrageous we’ve seen.”

Transcript excerpts from state Sen. Geoff Michel’s Sept. 30 press conference (MPR’s audio player should appear at the end of this post; if not, click here):

MICHEL: … I come before you today as a supporter of Erik Paulsen. … I will admit I thought long and hard about running for this seat … I care about this seat. It’s where I live. It’s where I’m raising four daughters [like Paulsen] …

My sense of the 3rd District and the people that I talk to, my neighbors, the people that I run into at the door as I doorknock for my friends and colleagues — they want the newest member from the 3^rd Congressional District to be someone who is grounded in the suburbs, someone with suburban life experience. And there is a huge contrast in this race. For lack of a better term, Ashwin Madia is a carpetbagger. He does not have this grounding of suburban life experiences, in stark contrast to Erik Paulsen. Now “carpetbagger” — that’s kind of an old — I’m not even sure if it’s a 19th-century term. And I’m not sure how it was first used. …

So what do we look to when people knock on our door, saying, “Hey, I want to be your member of Congress?” … Voters in the 3rd District are looking for more than party. … They want to know: What’s in your background? What have you done? …

As far as our records can tell, Ashwin Madia has never, never even owned a home. I would like my next member of Congress to have owned a home and to know what it’s like to pay a mortgage. … That’s one indicia of a suburban life experience. Raising a family in the district. Sending your kids to the public school. Owning a home. Working in the 3rd District. Paying property taxes in the 3rd District. Erik Paulsen has done all these things, and Ashwin Madia has not. …

Have you paid taxes in the 3rd District? That’s what people will ask you at the door. They’ll ask you: Where do you live? Or where do you work? He worked in Minneapolis, for a law firm. He served in the Marines, and I thank him. I honor him for that service. That is certainly something to be applauded. But it’s not a shortcut to Congress. And the voters in the 3rd District are going to have a lot more questions.

Do you feel what my family feels, trying to save for college? Do you feel what my family feels, sending our kids to public schools? When you talk about No Child Left Behind and the growth of the federal government’s role in education, do you feel that as a father? These are all important, kind of minimum requirements for a member of Congress from the 3rd District. And again, it’s a huge contrast between Erik Paulsen and Ashwin Madia. I think Mr. Madia has great energy and certainly great ambition, but he’s got some major holes in his resume. Erik has done all of these things. He has served the 3rd District. He has led in the 3rd District. He is raising four beautiful daughters in the 3rd District — not as beautiful as mine. …

So that’s our main message today. There are Paulsen campaign staffers here for additional follow up or questions. I’m happy to stand for any questions at this time. …

QUESTION: So if you’re a renter, if you don’t have kids, you’re not qualified to serve in Congress.

MICHEL: I think that’s a little strong. But I’d say this: I’d say you are more qualified to serve in Congress if you’ve done some of those things that I have listed off. Because that will give the voters of the 3rd District something to hang on to, something to hang on to other than party. “Yeah, he’s done a little bit of what I’m doing. He’s felt some of my pain. He’s gone to a parent-teacher conference at school. He’s coached some rambunctious soccer teams on the fields of Eden Prairie.”

Mr. Madia is legally qualified to run for Congress. He has met all the minimum legal qualifications. But I’m telling you what I hear on the streets of places like Edina and Bloomington. People have a much higher bar than just that. People ask me, as a state senator, not just, “Well, have you rented?” People ask me as a state senator, these kinds of questions: Where do you live? What have you done in your life? Where do your kids go to school? I think those are the qualifications that voters of the 3^rd District has [sic], and each of these candidates will have to answer to them.

QUESTION: His campaign has released a statement, Senator, that says the reason he hasn’t owned a home is he lived at his parents’ home while he was going to the U of M, and then he enlisted in the military.   Certainly military experience would come to bear in voting in Congress — [question cut off by Michel's response]

MICHEL: Absolutely … Again, we want to honor Mr. Madia’s service. Boy, you know, I thank God that there are people like him that will raise their hand and serve. But if you’re only 29 years old and you decide that you want to run for Congress, you might feel like there’s some holes in your resume. … If we send someone to Washington D.C. from the 3rd District, let’s send someone who has lived there and felt the issues of the 3rd Congressional District.

QUESTION: Rep. Ramstad, who probably represented the district pretty well, but he didn’t raise a family there. He was a bachelor— [question cut off by Michel’s response]

MICHEL: You’re right. He represented the Wayzata-Plymouth-Minnetonka area in the state senate. He did what — he worked just down the hallway here for over a decade. So Rep. Ramstad and the state Sen. Ramstad did a great job and spent — He was prolific in the number of doors he knocked on, over the years. There wasn’t anybody in Minnetonka who hadn’t personally shaken Jim Ramstad’s hand. It’s a great role model, great example. [complete answer]

QUESTION: Aren’t there a bunch of different kinds of people who live in the 3rd District? It’s a big district. It’s not just people who own homes, and it’s not just people with kids. There’s a whole bunch of different kinds of people. How can you say you have to be this kind of person to represent that district? What if you come from another part of the district, an immigrant community, for instance? Are you not qualified for some reason?

MICHEL: Well, I’m — you’re — that’s your second question about being qualified. Again, this comes to me from my experience of the past six years, from my own campaigns. These are the things that suburban constituents ask me. These are the expectations that they have. No — is he — he’s not unqualified. And I wouldn’t disqualify him. Yes, we’re blessed in the 3rd District. There’s more diversity than ever. There’s demographic diversity, there’s economic, socioeconomic diversity. And yeah, you need to be able to represent every one of those people. But if you are coming to this campaign with a lack of experience — of life experience — you’re going to feel that at the door. …

[Where it's indicated in bold, emphasis is added. Emphasis in italics is the speaker's.]

Not included in the excerpt above is considerable discussion of Madia’s home address. Michel said Madia’s use of his parents’ Plymouth address on the form to file for office constituted one the “holes in his resume.” But in the end Michel conceded that he didn’t know where Madia had lived around the time of the filing, and that in any case it isn’t a legal requirement to live in the district.

MPR audio player