The front of the offending ad

Two Republican Congressmen from Arizona are facing off in a primary that has turned nasty. Reps. Ben Quayle, son of former Vice-President Dan Quayle, and David Schweikert are in a hotly contested race for their party’s nomination.

The campaign has come down to who is the most conservative. ABC 15 in Arizona addressed the fine line, if there is one, separating the two.

Both candidates argued that they are the “true” conservative. The fact is, Rep. Quayle was chosen as one of the most conservative members of Congress by The National Journal. When you compare their records, they both voted with the Republican party 93% of the time.

In fact, OpenCongress.org shows that Rep. Quayle and Rep. Schweikert voted the same 95% of the time.

The ad must be turned over to clarify that the reference is to issues, not sexuality.

With hardly a whisker of difference between the two on ideology, the two have taken to arguing over ideologically insignificant votes where the two have differed.

A recent ad by Schweikert tried to reemphasize those minute differences but with a twist. He is making a thinly veiled suggestion that Quayle is bisexual. That grabbed the ire of retiring Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl who called it “an example of the worst in American politics.”

Kyl’s right.

The Quayle campaign responded with similar disgust and a demand for an apology.

“The mailer is utterly false regarding Congressman Quayle but accurately demonstrates the two sides of Dave Schweikert: the usual dishonesty and lies combined with a sleazy smear tactic,” said Quayle spokesperson Anna Haberlein.

The Schweikert campaign stated that they are just referring to Quayle’s flip-flopping. That is flip-flopping that only the Schweikert campaigns sees with the ratings from conservative organizations that both candidates possess.