Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise had no opponent in the October party primary elections, but he took plenty of political punches for months from businessman Jim Harlan, who had weak opposition in the Democratic primary and was able to aim his scathing television ads at Scalise.

Now, Scalise is hitting back.

Seeking his first full term as the congressman from Louisiana's 1st District, his campaign last week launched a television ad featuring, among other things, video of an arm-flailing, angry Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of Sen. Barack Obama. The point: his Democratic opponent, Harlan, is too close to Obama and, thus, too liberal for the historically conservative, Republican-voting district of mostly white New Orleans suburbs.

True, Harlan was an Obama delegate at the Democratic convention and an Obama campaign contributor. But linking the wealthy, white, pro-gun, anti-abortion Democrat to the fiery black preacher -- seen shouting "God damn America" in the Scalise ad -- is a bit of a stretch, says Shreveport-based demographer and political consultant Elliott Stonecipher.

It's hardly the only one in this campaign.

Take for instance the Harlan ad linking Scalise to a scandal in the state's budding film industry.

As a state representative, Scalise was a legislative sponsor of former Gov. Mike Foster's bills granting tax credits and incentives to bring movie and television production to the state.

The state's former film commissioner pleaded guilty last year to taking about $60,000 in bribes to help inflate tax credits for one company. Harlan also notes that Scalise received past campaign contributions from officials of the Louisiana Institute for Film Technology, the company accused in a civil lawsuit of kicking money back to Smith.

"His one big government program resulted in corruption, kickbacks, failure," a Harlan ad says.

But Scalise has not been touched by the scandal; and, while some have questioned whether the film program costs the state too much money, nobody questions that it has created jobs in a budding film industry that has brought major productions to the state. Asked if that ad, too, is a stretch, Stonecipher agreed that it was.

Harlan, largely financing his own campaign to the tune of more than $980,000 so far, struck early and hard in the campaign. The political newcomer began building name recognition last summer with ads and a Web site touting his experience as an energy expert in the Carter and Reagan administrations, his education (a degree in chemical engineering from Washington University, a doctorate in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard) and his successful private business career.

But there also were the ads portraying Scalise, a 12-year legislative veteran who was elected last spring to fill the unfinished congressional term of Gov. Bobby Jindal, as a wild-eyed partisan hack who won't work with Democratic congressional leaders.

Stonecipher foresees no end to such advertising, common in other Louisiana races and in races across the nation, until and if the public rises up against them.

Negative, dubious or hard-to-substantiate claims in political ads have become commonplace in politics, especially with the rise of national party political operatives operating at the state level, Stonecipher said. "And we don't push back, we the people," he said.