The race to replace Joe Donnelly in the U-S House is getting a lot of attention as we election day draws near. Republican Jackie Walorski and Democrat Brendan Mullen are now battling it out on the airwaves.
"Washington D.C., home to President Obama, Nancy Palosi and D.C. Insider Brendan Mullen," the voice over on a Walorski Campaign ad says. "Mullen likes Washington, D.C so much he owns three homes there."
Mullen strikes back with an ad of his own that features U.S. Army Veteran Chad Gibson from Osceola. "When I see Jackie Walorski smear Brendan, who has spent his life defending our country and working for veterans, while Walorski spent her's as a career politician... that's downright un-American," Gibson says in the ad.
"We are not running a smear campaign," Walorski tells FOX 28. Instead she calls her campaign careful and professional.
Walorski says the ad, which shows three addresses owned by Mullen in D.C., is sourced and factual. "I'm not the one who owns three houses in another state that I worked in, he is," she says. "Those are just facts."
"First and foremost I was disappointed," Mullen tells FOX 28. He doesn't dispute that he owns property in D.C. He says they are ental properties, but he doesn't like that his tenants' addresses are on display across the airwaves and he disputes Walorski's notion that he's a D.C. insider.
"Listen I have Hoosier Blood dripping through my veins," Mullen says. "I'm a born-and-raised guy in South Bend, an Adams High School Grad. You know I left South Bend for a life in the military."
That military life began when he left South Bend in 1996 to go to the U.S. Military Academy. He graduated from West Point in '01.
His active duty service took him overseas and included a year serving in Iraq. He started a business in D.C. that he says helps vets find jobs. He moved to Granger last summer. "I believe the actions of her, her team, were un-American by striking a punch to my service to the country that just so happened to be in the District of Columbia."
Walorski takes issue with the word "Un-American."
"You know, I commend him for being in the service," Walorski says. "I commend every veteran that's ever served this nation, and first responders as well, but you make choices and the point is that he was recruited to come back to a place that he hasn't lived and run for Congress."
Another back and forth in this campaign: Mullen labeling Walorski a career politician. She's a Riley Grad. Her resume includes three terms in the Indiana House. She was a reporter, a Development Director and also lived in Romania for a time where she worked to bring medical supplies to poor children
