Reid-Angle crossfire ricochets in direction of Titus

A hard-hitting campaign ad by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., not only attacks his Republican opponent Sharron Angle for voting against a bill to cover the costs of background checks for volunteers who work with kids but sends some collateral damage in the direction of Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., a Reid ally facing her own difficult re-election fight.

The ad followed an Angle ad, rated misleading by FactCheck.org, that accused Reid of voting "to use taxpayer dollars to pay for Viagra for convicted child molesters and sex offenders.

Reid's ad says Angle, by being one of two members of the Assembly to vote against the measure, "voted to protect the privacy of sex offenders instead of the safety of our kids."

Fair enough, says the nonpartisan political fack-check site, PolitiFact, which calls Reid's ad an "oversimplification ... but mostly true".

So how did Titus get zinged in this firefight between Angle's "misleading" claim and Reid's "mostly true" accusation?

Titus was in the state senate when the bill Reid's ad featured, AB 239, went through the legislature and was the only senator to cast a 'no' vote on the measure, just as Angle cast a 'no' vote in the assembly.

When asked whether Titus agreed with Reid that a 'no' vote was akin a vote "to protect the privacy of sex offenders instead of the safety of our kids", Titus spokesman Andrew Stoddard responded with this explanation: "Angle voted against the bill in the Assembly. Dina voted for the exact same bill in committee. When it came to the Senate floor a Republican amendment was passed that weakened the bill by holding non-profits harmless if they refused to take advantage of free money to help them screen out sex offenders, allowed a sex offender to work with kids, and something happened. Dina voted against the amended version, which was different than the bill Angle voted on, because Republicans took a good bill and removed any incentive for organizations to use it."