Minnesota's senatorial campaign continues down a dirty path as the National Republican Senatorial Committee released a comic book aimed at children blasting Democratic candidate Al Franken for joking about rape, writing pornography and beating up protesters. Wow, real classy, Norm.

The comic book plays off the fact that Franken was formerly a comedian, a fact which has given this race some national attention. Franken's comedy days have fueled a slew of ads which depict Franken as an unfit funnyman who is hateful of minorities, women and the handicapped, and who is prone to go into a rage at a moments notice. The comic book is on a whole other level of poor taste, aimed at children with cartoons of kids and dogs making disgusting accusations.

Of course, Republican candidate Norm Coleman can disassociate himself from the whole thing, seeing as how he stopped putting out negative ads. However, all this means is that the NRSC has license to amp up its ads, putting out smears of Franken that are outrageous and mark a new low in dirty campaigning. Since Norm has no association with the ads any longer (um, right), he can sit blameless as the NRSC continues their slow boat to hell by putting out this propaganda.

The latest anti-Franken television ad:

Yes, Franken was a comedian and sometimes comedians say bad words. (What??? Really???)  In the ad above, all the sources for the accusations made were made several years ago, failing to have any relevance to this race. The ad fails to mention that Democratic Rep. Betty McCollum, whose quotes against Franken from a while back are featured in this ad, now supports Al Franken in this race.

The Coleman campaign is fighting dirty in this race, and it is these sorts of tactics that should make us ashamed of a US Senator, not some ribald jokes told by a candidate ages ago.