Where's Harry?

Ken Cuccinelli, former Virginia attorney general and head of a group called Senate Conservatives Fund, has sent out a fund-raising message attacking U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate Democratic floor leader:

“[Iowa is] one of the most competitive races in the country, and it could determine whether the Democrats continue to control the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) knows this, which is why he and his liberal allies are on the air right now attacking [Republican U.S. Senate nominee] Joni Ernst … with negative, dishonest TV ads. The ads claim that Joni supports shipping jobs overseas because she signed a pledge not to raise taxes. It's completely bogus. … Even the left-leaning Politifact rated these attacks as ‘false'.”

Politifact, a Tampa Bay Times website that fact-checks journalists and politicians, has also been denounced by Reid on occasion. The claim against Ernst rests on her having signed the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” circulated by a special interest group, a claim made against a number of candidates over the past several years. But Politifact, FactCheck and the Associated Press have all adjudged the claim to be false.

What's not clear is what all this has to do with Reid. The Iowa TV spots are being run not by a Reid political action committee, but by the NextGen Climate Action Committee, which Congressional Quarterly says is funded by billionaire Democratic figure Tom Steyer.