Groups bash Senate hopeful George Allen as pawn of ‘Big Oil’

New TV advertisements in Washington, D.C., and Virginia will paint GOP Virginia Senate candidate George Allen as beholden to oil-and-gas interests.

Liberal groups Majority PAC and the League of Conservation Voters are funding the $1.6 million campaign against Allen, a former Virginia senator running against former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D). The ads decry Allen’s haul of more than $500,000 in campaign contributions in three previous elections from the oil and gas industry and his links to Republican strategist Karl Rove.

Watch the ads, which begin running Thursday, here and here.

“George Allen has given billions of our tax dollars to Big Oil and exploded our deficit in the process. Karl Rove and his corporate allies are spending millions to buy Virginia's Senate seat in November, but the truth isn't for sale," Navin Nayak, senior vice president for campaigns with the League of Conservation Voters, said Thursday in a statement.

Allen, also a former Virginia governor, favors using carbon-based fuels to promote national energy security and reduce costs for consumers. On his campaign website, Allen notes he has “long opposed a carbon tax” and wants to expand drilling on federal lands and offshore areas to unlock oil-and-gas reserves.

The Allen campaign portrayed Kaine as chained to liberal power brokers in a statement to The Hill on Thursday. Kaine gets his support from Majority PAC financier George Soros and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to run “misleading ads designed to hide Tim Kaine’s tax and regulate agenda for more job loss,” Emily Davis, spokeswoman for the Allen campaign, said.

“Tim Kaine stands for the assault on American energy by supporting Cap-and-Trade, opposing the Keystone pipeline and supporting EPA regulations that will devastate jobs in Virginia,” Davis said. “Virginians know George Allen is the only candidate in this race with a record for job creation with 300,000 jobs added as Governor. He will bring his proven, pro-growth solutions to the U.S. Senate, including unleashing our American energy resources for more jobs.”

The Hill rates the race between Allen and Kaine a “toss-up.”

The candidates are running for Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-Va.) seat. He is retiring at the end of this session.