Former Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, is pulling a page from the 2002 campaign playbook. Instead of focusing on hot-button issues, such as the economy or the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, her new campaign website is aimed at the war on terror. Dozens of military veterans have signed a petition asking Norton to remove the ad, arguing that it has “extreme, untrue, and dangerous rhetoric” (via The Huffington Post).

In a recent HuffPo article, Jonny Karpuk, a West Point graduate and veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, chides Norton for essentially endorsing Bush administration policies he says are responsible for the failures Norton highlights in her ad. Cinamon Watson, a spokeswoman for Norton, tells The Denver Post the ad is meant to remind people of Norton’s commitment on the war on terror.

Meanwhile, Norton is questioning why her Republican opponent, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, abandoned a promising career as a federal prosecutor a decade ago. “He left the U.S. attorney’s office under a cloud,” Norton alleges (via The Denver Post). Buck has released hundreds of pages of personnel records to the Post, showing that he left his position when his superior rebuked him for bad-mouthing a felony case to defense lawyers representing Aurora gun dealers.