Oops! DeWine alters ad

Amid criticism from Democrats over an image of the burning World Trade Center towers in his latest TV commercial, Sen. Mike DeWine’s campaign announced tonight that it would be switching the images.

But the switch is NOT in response to the criticism. It’s in response to a phone call the senator just received from U.S. News & World Report, asking if the image had been changed in any way.

As it turns out, the image of the burning twin towers that is shown in DeWine’s TV ad is a graphic representation that shows the towers with smoke – not actual video footage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“The senator was unaware that the image of the towers was a graphic representation and has instructed the campaign to replace the footage with a picture of the twin towers,” campaign spokesman Brian Seitchik said in a statement he read to reporters.

Seitchik said the ad was being changed tonight and the new version – showing a photograph of the towers before the attacks – will be shipped to stations tonight or first thing tomorrow morning.

He said the switch had nothing to do with criticism from the Ohio Democratic Party, which rolled out ads attacking DeWine on Tuesday.

“The campaign stands by the factual basis of the ad, and since we decided to use the image of the twin towers, we wanted to use an actual picture,” he said.

DeWine faces Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown of northern Ohio in a race for one of Ohio’s two U.S. Senate seats on Nov. 7.