Republican Massachusetts Senate candidate: Ed Markey is 'pond scum'

Republican Massachusetts Senate nominee Gabriel Gomez is lashing out at his opponent, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), for being "pond scum" after the Democratic candidate released an ad attacking him for criticizing President Barack Obama's handling of the aftermath of Osama bin Laden's death.

"You know I’ve got four young kids, and they’ve got to sit there and they’ve got to see an ad with their dad, who’s a SEAL, who served honorably," Gomez told a local reporter after recently speaking to the Newtown Needham Chamber of Commerce. "And for him to be as dirty and low, pond scum, to like put me up there next to bin Laden, he's just gotta be called what he is. That simple."

"Congressman Markey’s been around for 40 years, he knows exactly what he’s doing," he added.

Earlier this month, Markey had sought to highlight that Gomez had worked with a conservative super PAC that accused the president of releasing information about bin Laden's death for political purposes. In a recently released ad of his own, Gomez also said that Markey "blames Gomez for the Newtown shooting."

In a statement obtained by Talking Points Memo on Friday, a spokesperson for Markey argued that Gomez's "desperate attack" was an attempt to avoid the real issues.

"After spending the past week leveling completely baseless attacks against Ed Markey that were thoroughly debunked by Massachusetts newspapers and nonpartisan fact checkers, Gabriel Gomez has reached a new low," Markey spokesperson Andrew Zucker insisted. "Unfortunately for Gomez, his desperate attack will do nothing to distract from his opposition to an assault weapons ban and limits on high-capacity magazines, or his refusal to release his 2005 tax return that would reveal how much he pocketed from taking a questionable $280,000 tax break on his Cohasset home."

Watch this video, uploaded to YouTube on May 23, 2013.