The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel rebukes Rep. John Salazar’s recent attack ad on Scott Tipton:

We don’t know if the folks involved with Rep. John Salazar’s re-election campaign are feeling desperate, or simply believe that going negative against an opponent is the way to win votes. Whatever the thinking, it can’t excuse Salazar’s latest attack on Republican Scott Tipton, a turgid television zinger that attempts to paint Tipton as a Wall Street fat cat and personal beneficiary of bank bailout funds approved by Congress.
The ad is so patently false or misleading in so many respects that Salazar deserves to lose two levels of candy in our gumball grading system. He drops from Level 2 to Level 4. He’d already dropped one level for his inaccurate representation of Tipton’s tax views. […]
On virtually every level, Salazar’s latest attack on Tipton is wrong or misleading. It is exactly the kind of campaign nonsense that fuels voter cynicism and anger. [emphasis added]

Here is the ad:

The Tipton campaign responded earlier this week:

The ad falsely implies that Tipton benefited from federal bailout payments to a bank on whose board Tipton served. For six years, Tipton sat on the board of Vectra Bank; he left Vectra’sboard in July, 2005 – three full years before Congress approved the $200 billion federal government bailout of hundreds of U.S. financial institutions. While Vectra never received TARP funds directly, its holding company, Zions Bancorporation received TARP funds in 2008.
The ad, beginning today, also incorrectly describes Tipton as a “banker.” Tipton has never beenemployed by a bank.
“It’s a tired Democrat retread now showing up in the playbook of a losing Congressman: if your opponent is making ground pointing out your pathetic record of voting for new spending, increased debt and larger government, accuse him of being a wealthy banker,” said Tipton campaign spokesman Sean Walsh. “This new ad fits right into the Salazar pattern of doing all he can to distract the voters from his pathetic record.”