LAS VEGAS - State Treasurer Kate Marshall blasted Republican Mark Amodei's stance on Medicare in a new TV spot released Friday that sought to align the former state lawmaker with far right conservatives in Washington, a tested Democratic tactic.
Amodei and Marshall are vying for the U.S. House seat left vacant by Republican Dean Heller's appointment to the Senate. The congressional district has never elected a Democrat.
The ad, which features Amodei praising Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare for anyone younger than 55, will run for at least a week. It's Marshall's second attack ad on Amodei.
"Paul Ryan, I like a lot of what he has to say in terms of Medicare. I think that's excellent," the latest ad shows Amodei saying at a Republican debate in June, when he was still trying to secure his party's nomination.
"Amodei thinks it's excellent to give seniors a voucher, double their out of pocket costs and give tax breaks to millionaires," the ad's narrator states.
In various press interviews, Amodei has applauded Ryan's budget overhaul, but occasionally waffled on whether he supports the Medicare component. He told the AP last month that he didn't know enough about how the Medicare plan would be implemented to opine on it.
Amodei has also said Medicare is broken and that he would consider increasing the eligibility age to 67 for younger generations not currently receiving benefits, a plan deplored by many Democrats. He was not immediately available for comment Friday.
Marshall told The Associated Press she would never have supported Ryan's budget and would not support changing the Medicare eligibility age.
"We need to preserve Medicare," she said Friday. "People pay into it their whole lives."
Marshall said one way to keep Medicare solvent would be to have the federal government negotiate for competitive prescription prices. "The first thing you need to do is use your advantages," she said. "We need to spend smartly."
Amodei's campaign said the former lawmaker's voting record disproves the Marshall ad. Amodei was a senator in 2009 when the Legislature unanimously passed a resolution urging Congress to fully fund Medicare. Campaign spokesman Peter DeMarco called Marshall's attack a distraction.
"Kate Marshall has never voted on anything - let alone Medicare," DeMarco said in a statement. "She really should get her facts straight, and it's pathetic that she feels the need to continue to lie."
Nevada's Sept. 13 election campaign has been hard fought, with national Republicans smearing Marshall as an economic disaster and Marshall painting Amodei as a conservative who supports tax increases.
Democrats nationally have seized on Republicans' support for Ryan's plan since at least May, when their candidate won a New York congressional seat in a heavily Republican district after capitalizing on fears that the GOP wants to weaken Medicare. Republicans also have a registration edge in the northern Nevada congressional district.
In her two previous ads, Marshall slammed Amodei for voting to increase taxes as a state senator while touting her successes as the state's fiscal leader. Marshall denied Friday that the New York special election had influenced her latest TV spot. She would not say whether she would continue to release ads that focused on Amodei's record, saying simply that she was always on the offense for voters.
Amodei, in contrast, has focused on Democratic leaders in Washington in his campaign spots and not mentioned Marshall in his ads. The National Republican Congressional Committee has done the attacking for him, releasing ads that depict Marshall as a failed fiscal steward.