Two hours after Democratic Attorney General candidate Linda Pence got her new ad up on YouTube, Republican challenger Greg Zoeller posted his first ad:

From a content standpoint, there’s nothing wrong with it, but Attorney General Steve Carter doesn’t have the most exciting speaking voice. Also, Linda Pence comes across as a complete prosecutorial badass in her spot. Zoeller? Not so much.

Attorney General candidate Linda Pence has a new ad out, and it’s darned good. Don’t know if it’s up on the airwaves, but it’s a 30-second spot, so my guess is that it will be soon.

Meanwhile, there’s still no word if or when Jill Long Thompson’s new ads will hit, but according to a campaign update, the gubernatorial candidate will be sharing the stage with Barack Obama at Wednesday’s rally at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

Remember last week when I said the Attorney General’s race is the one to watch at the statewide level?

Looks like state Republicans might think so, too. Why else do you start slinging mud at Democratic nominee and well respected lawyer Linda Pence?

The Indiana Republican Party is questioning whether Linda Pence, the Democratic nominee for Indiana attorney general, can be trusted to head that office, given some of the clients that she has defended.

“Linda Pence has a long client list full of bad actors and corrupt figures,” said Jay Kenworthy, GOP communications director. “While Linda Pence has been out trying to get reduced penalties for companies like CR3 and Rieth-Riley, Greg Zoeller has been working for the taxpayers of Indiana, protecting their tax dollars and keeping the criminals in jail.”

The 53-year-old Zoeller, the Republican nominee, is chief deputy attorney general under Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter.

Besides being a defense attorney, Pence is a former federal prosecutor who also successfully represented the state in the White River fish kill litigation.

“This is a feeble, desperate attack,” said Pence, 58, an Indianapolis attorney.

“I’ve been talking issues and trying to schedule debates, but his manager … wouldn’t discuss scheduling debates,” she said. “He doesn’t want to talk issues. So instead, what do you do? He’s attacking me for being experienced.”

Both candidates are still relatively unknown outside of political circles, but Pence has a couple things going for her in my estimation: (1) her last name, which is the same as a certain Republican vote-getter in the Sixth Congressional District; and (2) she’s a woman.

On that last point, here’s a theory: We’ve got two dudes on the presidential ballot. We’ve got the first female gubernatorial nominee in Indiana history, but she’s going nowhere fast against a reinvented, well funded incumbent. That being the case, might Hoosiers split their ticket a little further down in order to cast a vote for a tough, brassy gal who has the know-how to take on big cases and big issues?

I’ve never been a big believer that women vote for women because they’re women (see also: Sarah Palin’s plummeting poll numbers), but I think there might be voters out there who want a diverse ticket that includes someone like Linda Pence.

At this point, it’s just a theory, but if the GOP’s attacking, Pence must be doing something right.

If you’re looking for a statewide contest to watch, may I suggest the race for Attorney General between Democrat Linda Pence and Republican Greg Zoeller?

Both candidates have been raising money and working at the grassroots level, and Pence today put out a very comprehensive plan to crack down on child abuse.

“In the last year, there have been two deaths of infants in foster homes in Marion County alone, and hundreds of other infants and children have died or suffered serious, grave injuries,” Pence said. “Our children deserve thorough, independent, comprehensive investigations performed by trained professionals with integrity whose mission will be to determine precisely what happened, whether someone was responsible for the death or injuries, and then be empowered to take swift action against anyone accountable.”

This is one of those races that doesn’t get a lot of attention in a normal year, let alone with Indiana in play at the presidential level. Keep your eye on it.

The controversy over suspending the state sales tax on gasoline is certainly reinforcing the old adage about politics making strange bedfellows. How about Jill Long Thompson with John McCain and Mitch Daniels with Barack Obama? Yesterday, Long Thompson repeated her call to suspend the 7% sales tax on gasoline, while Daniels appeared to back off from a statement he made in mid-May about it being something worth “taking a look at sometime.” The Governor wasn’t available for comment, and both his Statehouse press secretary and campaign spokesperson said that “nothing had changed” that would lead him to pursue the idea at any time in the immediate future.

This puts Long Thompson squarely in line with McCain, who has advocated a holiday for the federal fuel excise tax, and puts Daniels on the same page with Obama, who calls the idea an election year “gimmick” that wouldn’t provide any real help for drivers. Long Thompson was quick to disclaim any philosophical alliance with McCain, saying his idea involved the excise tax, which is used to build roads, and hers involves the sales tax, which goes into the state’s general coffers for, among other things, property tax relief.

But the real key here is not where the tax money goes, but how much relief a suspension would provide to taxpayers. And the federal excise tax of about 18 cents and the state sales tax, from 20 to 28 cents a gallon, would provide approximately the same amount of savings. So Long Thompson and McCain are a lot closer on this issue that she wants to admit. So are Daniels and Obama, and I don’t think the Governor is all that unhappy when that is pointed out.

That’s because Daniels and Obama share the same key word that’s central to both campaigns….Change, with a capital C. Democrats love it when Obama talks about change, but they have fought virtually every change Daniels has tried to implement for three and a half years. In a year when everything the Democratic presidential candidate touches seems to turn to gold, Daniels doesn’t mind one bit when people make the connection. In fact, he smiled and said he noted the irony of all this when I asked him about this philosophical confluence a few weeks ago.

If the key to the Democratic campaign in Indiana in 2008 is that change is good when it’s Obama saying it, but change is bad when it’s Daniels, they’re unlikely to win both, or either, races.