Willy Ritch

UPDATE: Pingree released a second ad Thursday. 

First Congressional District candidate Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, released an advertisement Tuesday centered on her opposition to the war in Iraq – both in 2002 when she ran for Senate and now.

“It was uncommon, Chellie Pingree had the courage to oppose the war in Iraq from the beginning, even when other Democrats supported George Bush,” the ad begins.

In the ad, she argues that money in Iraq would be better spent on health care, job creation and education.

This comes after two of her opponents, Democrats Adam Cote and Ethan Strimling, criticized her for being inconsistent in her position on funding the war. Saturday, Major General Paul Eaton wrote a letter to the editor to the Portland Press Herald, disassociating himself from the Pingree campaign and endorsing Cote, an Iraq veteran, instead.

Ethan Strimling’s campaign has returned a $250 donation from a Connecticut hedge fund, saying it was given as a “dirty trick” by one of Chellie Pingree’s supporters.

Pingree’s campaign said they know nothing of the donation, and public records searches show the fund’s founder had donated to Strimling’s interests in the past.

Strimling campaign manager Corey Hascall said the donation from Selwyn Sussman of Rye Brook, New York came after the campaign sent out a fundraising solicitation that criticized Pingree for taking money from employees of Paloma Partners, a hedge fund based in Greenwich, Ct.

Interesting story in the Press Herald this morning about Willy Ritch, Chellie Pingree’s campaign communications director.

A former radio host, Ritch first got involved in politics by campaigning against coal gasification plants.  read more »