Does Mark Kirk's New TV Ad Go Too Far … to the Left?

A new TV spot that's part of the state's hotly contested U.S. Senate race has some political observers wondering if they're playing the old Sesame Street game of finding the item in a group that doesn't belong.

The campaign commercial, which began airing Thursday in Chicago, is:

• virulently anti-Trump
• unambigiously pro-choice
• critical of the GOP's efforts to block a confirmation hearing for President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland
• in support of incumbent Republican candidate Sen. Mark Kirk

Can you spot the item that doesn't fit?

The characteristically Democratic positions the ad spotlights, however, aren't new stances for Kirk (although some critics claim he was a little late jumping on board the "dump Trump" bandwagon). But the commercial does go out of its way to emphasize those positions in a way that seems to distance Kirk from certain aspects of his party.

RELATED: Donald Trump 'Too Bigoted and Racist' for Illinois: Sen. Mark Kirk

Matt McGrath, deputy campaign manager for Kirk's senatorial opponent, U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, isn't buying Kirk's liberal look, claiming "he's not being straight with Illinois voters by portraying himself as a liberal Democrat in Chicago while apparently hoping no one else across the state notices."

"You can always count on two things from Kirk: dishonesty and crude political calculation, and this ad has an abundance of both," McGrath said in a statement released Thursday.

Is this ad "crude political calculation" or smart strategy as he goes toe to toe with Duckworth in what some pundits predict to be a very tight senatorial race?

RELATED: Tammy Duckworth Joins Other U.S. Representatives in House Floor Sit-In

And even if it's a sound tactic, does Kirk and this commercial take it too far to the left? Will Kirk alienate staunch Republican voters—and being branded a RINO, Republican In Name Only—in an effort to court independents disenchanted with partisan politics?

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