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Vaughn Ward, a GOP candidate for Idaho's First Congressional district, is facing charges that he swiped key passages from Barack Obama's iconic 2004 Democratic National Convention speech for his own campaign kickoff speech in January.
The specific passages in question have since been spliced together by a Tea Party activist who asks, "Who Is Vaughn Ward Really?"
Mike Tracy, a spokesman for Ward's campaign tried to downplay the video, telling Politico that the attack was a sign that "[f]olks are getting desperate -- they're saying anything to get Vaughn to go after him. If anyone thinks he's anything like Obama, they're dead wrong."
These allegations come after a series of missteps for the GOP candidate's campaign. Ward fired his campaign manager following an embarrassing discovery that he had borrowed heavily from the campaign language of various other GOP politicians. Ward later sought to rebound from that hiccup with a high-profile appearance with Sarah Palin, who endorsed him -- along with other military veterans -- back in March, but the event was slightly tarnished by multiple reports showing that Ward had referred to Puerto Rico as a "country" during a recent debate.
Republican voters in Idaho will go to the polls Tuesday to choose between Ward and his challenger, State Rep. Raul Labrador. Recent polling shows Ward leading Labrador 31 percent to 28 percent, with undecideds making up 37 percent. A similar poll from earlier in May had Ward leading 34 percent to 16 percent.
The following video is a mashup of Ward and Obama's remarks, created by Idaho blogger Lucas Baumbach, a tea party activist seeking a State Senate seat: