Kentucky attorney general Jack Conway’s Senate campaign, previously chided here for a TV ad’s “dishonest twisting of [Rand] Paul’s statements,” has released another one that is so bigoted it caused even liberal partisan Jonathan Chait of the New Republic to blanch. Chait writes,

The trouble with Conway’s ad is that it comes perilously close to saying that non-belief in Christianity is a disqualification for public office. That’s a pretty sickening premise for a Democratic campaign. [Not that Rand Paul has in fact demonstrated any non-belief in Christianity, but Conway is dredging up allegations from Paul’s college days.]

Here’s the ad:

It puts one in mind of Bob Schieffer’s stunned question to David Axelrod: Is that the best you can do?

Rand Paul is not a perfect libertarian, as Cato colleagues and others have noted. And surely Jack Conway could engage him in robust debate on legitimate issues from Obamacare to the national debt and the Iraq war. But looking at the actual ads Conway has chosen to run, I’ll repeat what I said about the previous ad: “the attorney general of the Commonwealth of Kentucky should be embarrassed.”