TV ad best-of lists bestow consolation prizes on Franken, Coleman, Madia

Three Minnesota candidates who didn’t win their elections — or haven’t won yet anyway, with the U.S. Senate race still in limbo — can take a little consolation in having their television ads (or ads meant to benefit them) honored on national best-of lists. “Running,” the first TV ad that Democrat Ashwin Madia aired in his losing bid to replace U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, was this morning ranked among the nation’s eight best ads in U.S. House races this year by The Fix, a Washington Post blog. Videos and more best-of listings after the jump, including the ad attacking Madia that used clips from “Running.”

Did KSTP tip Paulsen on results of Survey USA’s new re-do poll?

A new Survey USA poll shows for the first time a spread between the two leading candidates in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District that’s greater than the margin of error. It’s a sudden swing that Survey USA suggests might be due to a TV ad that darkens Democrat Ashwin Madia’s skin. But if so, the effect would seem to arise more from recent news reports about the ad than from the ad itself, which came out a full week before the first of Survey USA’s latest pair of back-to-back polls. Another way Republican Erik Paulsen’s ahead: KSTP gave Paulsen’s campaign an early preview of the poll results, according to Joe Bodell. And David Dillon’s camp says the poll is a re-do because the Survey USA left the Independence Party candidate’s name off last time.

3rd CD: Debate tonight, new party ads, and a gender gap on parade

While the country turned its fickle eyes to Minnesota’s suddenly compelling 6th Congressional District contest, the race for the state’s 3rd District didn’t stop being hot. Over the last two days, both major parties’ congressional committees unveiled new TV ads. Big male guns vouched for the Republican candidate, state Rep. Erik Paulsen, and big female guns tried to widen a gender gap for DFLer Ashwin Madia — while heaping derision on another female office-holder, state Rep. Michele Bachmann. All this and more, with video and details about tonight’s candidate debate in Edina, after the jump.

3CD: 3rd quarter cash, TV buys, Dillon on radio, Kline critiques Madia ad

The three candidates vying for Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District seat raised nearly $2 million in the third quarter, according to reports they filed today with the Federal Election Commission, with a combined take of $1,946,000. And spending for TV in the 3rd is outpacing the presidential contenders in the Twin Cities market and running at nearly a third of the total TV outlay in Minnesota’s uber-spendy U.S. Senate race. More inside, including Dillon’s radio debut and a Madia TV spot gets caught in U.S. Rep. John Kline’s cross-district crossfire.

3rd CD video roundup: Madia, DCCC have new TV ads; Paulsen has Fox 9 and YouTube

The cash differential is really starting to show in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District race, as evidenced by four new pieces of video today. Two are paid ads intended for TV: a positive ad from Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate Ashwin Madia called “Discipline,” which highlights his service as a U.S. Marine and argues for fiscal discipline, and a negative ad from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that attacks Republican candidate Erik Paulsen for coddling offshore dummy corporations.

The other two are free media: a three-minute YouTube video posted by the Paulsen campaign that features testimonials from veterans who support the state representative’s congressional bid, and a four-minute interview that Fox 9 conducted with Paulsen as part of its morning news show… which was followed minutes later by the new Madia ad. See videos after the jump.

Franken’s bad karma spills into nonpolitical ad time

Republicans may have done crack oppo-research on Al Franken, but they couldn’t have also arranged for uncannily targeted third-party ad buys on local TV news … could they?

On WCCO-TV’s 10 p.m. news Wednesday, Amelia Santaniello teased…