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Warren Takes To The Airwaves With 1st TV Spot

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About a year away from Election Day, Democratic Senate challenger Elizabeth Warren is already running her first television ad. It follows several issues ads against Warren and Republican Sen. Scott Brown that were paid for by third parties.

In an ad called “Who I Am,” Warren looks straight at the camera and says, "Before you hear a bunch of ridiculous attack ads, I want to tell you who I am.”

Warren goes on: "Like a lot of you, I came up the hard way. My dad sold carpet and when he had a heart attack my mom worked so we could keep the house."

Warren is already under attack with a TV ad paid for by Crossroads GPS, a Karl Rove-backed advocacy organization. It says Warren isn’t focusing on jobs, but is instead siding with "extreme left" protesters in the Occupy Movement.

Third-party advertisers are also going after Brown. The League of Conservation Voters is running two TV ads calling on Brown to stop voting to protect Big Oil.

Brown has not launched any TV ads, but he did respond to the attack ads against him with an Internet-only rebuttal ad. Juxtaposed against the attack ad, a male voiceover says "Brown voted repeatedly against protecting our environment and public health," but then you hear the sound of a needle being ripped off a record and a female voiceover says, "Brown wants a clean environment and has worked across the aisle on legislation to protect our communities from harmful pollutants."

The two main candidates are circling each other, says Tobe Berkovitz, a professor of advertising at Boston University.

"For a general election campaign — which is what we now having going with these two candidates — yes, this is early," he said. Berkovitz added that "people are going to be burnt out before New Year's, let alone Election Day 2012."

Warren has four opponents in the Democratic primary. State Rep. Tom Conroy has an Internet ad introducing himself, but the other three Democrats in the field don’t have TV ads, or videos online.

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