David McIntosh is under attack in his bid to return to Congress.  However, his opponents are using mail pieces rather than TV ads to launch those attacks.

One of the mailers going out in the 5th District show David McIntosh in the shadows as they suggest he’s not fit to represent Indiana in Congress because he lives in Virginia.  It comes from the John McGoff campaign.  Why not use TV instead?  “On TV you can come across very negative,” says McGoff campaign manager Lou Quinto.  McGoff’s TV ads are entirely positive, telling voters to support him with no suggestion that they should oppose someone else.

Susan Brooks has a backhanded compliment in her TV ads.  “I’m running against some good guys,” she says, “but they’re career politicians.”  But that’s nothing like the message in her campaign mailers.  They suggest that David McIntosh sold his values working as a lobbyist.

Both campaigns defend the messages in their mail pieces.  “We don’t think we distorted any truth,” says Quinto.  “He (McIntosh) lives in Washington.  He works in Washington.  His children go to school  in Washington. He’s been living in Washington.   He’s not an Indiana resident and so that’s the basis behind that mailer.”

And the mailer is targeted.  It only goes to voters in the 5th District.

The Susan Brooks campaign declined an interview request for this story.  But one thing you can draw from the strategies here is that McIntosh is in the lead and, if he loses, it will be because the mailers worked.