Senator Max Baucus is taking a bashing from liberal Democrats for leaving public insurance out of the Senate Finance Committee’s healthcare reform bill.

With the committee chaired by Baucus headed for a showdown on the issue Tuesday, a new ad taken out by the liberal wing of his own Democratic party notes he took millions in contributions from the health and insurance industries and asks: “Whose side are you on?”

Baucus is a target because he kept a public option out of his healthcare bill in order to try to fashion a measure that could win both Republican and Democratic support.

President Barack Obama favors a public option. Under the system he proposes, people who do not get health insurance through their employer could go to a government-sponsored marketplace to buy insurance.

The marketplace would be comprised mainly of private insurers, but Obama also favors a public option to make sure there is enough competition to push down prices.

Republicans firmly oppose a public insurance option, arguing it will ultimately drive private firms out of business and lead to a government takeover of the $2.5 trillion health system.

The Senate Finance Committee Tuesday will debate amendments that would put a public insurance option into the Baucus bill.

Baucus’ efforts to win bipartisan support have gained little ground so far. Even the Republicans that negotiated for months with him have not yet committed to endorsing the final bill.

Republicans are using the healthcare issue to try out new attack lines.

The Republican National Committee circulated a new Web ad Monday charging Obama and the Democrats will impose seven different kinds of taxes to pay for healthcare reform.

A survey by Rasmussen Reports Monday found support for Obama’s plan still slipping. Just 41 percent of voters nationwide favored it, while 56 percent opposed.

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Up until now, the mud slinging in the presidential race has mostly been the Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama accusing the other of lying about each other’s record and views on health care, taxes and the Iraq war.
 
Now, with less than a month to go until voters go to the polls, the McCain campaign has sent out on the attack his vice presidential running-mate Sarah Palin where she is slinging some serious dirt, accusing Obama of “palling around with terrorists.”

She was referring to William Ayers, a former member of the Vietnam War-era militant group the Weather Underground. Obama met him decades later in the 1990s when he first began his political career in Chicago and the two served on an education board together.

Two days later, she adjusted her language slightly in Florida, not repeating the line about “palling around with terrorists” but saying Obama was “someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country.” 

The Obama campaign showed it would match the mud-slinging fistful for fistful, immediately bringing up McCain’s role in the “Keating Five” scandal, noting he was one of the senators who met federal regulators on behalf of a California savings and loan institution that collapsed in 1989. 
 
Here’s a clip the Obama campaign released from a 13 minute documentary about McCain’s role in the scandal to be released later on Monday.  
 

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CONCORD, N.H. - Barack Obama accused Republicans on Friday of trying to shift the focus of the presidential debate away from serious issues such as the economy and toward frivolous subjects like lipstick, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Taking on a feistier tone, the Democratic presidential hopeful sought to show his supporters he wants to fight back aggressively against escalating attacks by his rival John McCain.

Democrats have become concerned about the momentum gained by McCain and his new running mate as polls have shown McCain has pulled even or slightly ahead of Obama, erasing the lead the Democratic presidential nominee held throughout the summer.

“You’ve seen the other side not want to spend any time talking about the issues,” Obama said. “I mean, what have they been talking about? They’ve been talking about lipstick. They’ve been talking about pigs. They’ve been talking about Britney. They’ve been talking about Paris.”

“These are serious times and it requires a serious debate,” he said. Obama was referring to a blitz of ads McCain has run, including one that likened him to celebrities such as Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

In another ad, McCain accused Obama of trying to smear Palin, an Alaska governor and self-described “hockey mom,”  when he likened the Republican’s plans for government reform to putting “lipstick on a pig.”

The McCain campaign has suggested that Obama was making reference to Palin’s joke that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was lipstick but Obama’s campaign denies his comment had anything to do with Palin.

Some of Obama’s backers worry that Obama won’t push back hard enough against the kind of “Swift Boat” attacks used against Democrat John Kerry in his failed 2004 White House bid.

But Obama has been emphasizing he is not going to shrink from the fight against tactics he compares to those of President George W. Bush’s strategist, Karl Rove.

“Here’s what I can guarantee you: We are going to be hitting back hard. We have been hitting back hard. We have been hitting back hard but we’re hitting back on the issues that matter to families,” Obama said earlier in the day at an event in Dover, N.H.

Obama was responding to a question at a town-hall style event from 39-year-old Glenn Grasso, who pressed the Democratic candidate on how he would respond to Republican “attack ads and the smear campaigns.” 

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Segar (Obama at forum on national service in New York on Sept. 11). ABC handout (McCain appearance on The View).