Minnesotans may enjoy basking in the national political spotlight as a major-party battleground state heading into November's elections, but having a Senate race that attracts the attention also attracts out-of-state "soft money" ad campaigns.

And GOP nominee Norm Coleman is finding out that doesn't always work out for a candidate.

Coleman Thursday called for special interest groups to back off from his race with incumbent Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone after a Virginia-based group began saturating Twin Cities radio waves with anti-Wellstone ads saying he supports "the death tax."

The ads popped up days ago, and in them a couple talks about the federal estate tax and a recent Senate vote on appealing it that failed, saying those who opposed the repeal supported taxing dead people, and said they are going to call Wellstone and tell him so "keep his money-grubbing hands off our farm."

Wellstone's camp cried foul, saying the ad was a distortion, that he supported an alternative bill that would have ended the tax for all but the wealthiest Americans. Two counter bills to completely repealing the tax failed, with observers saying Republicans pushed for the all-or-nothing bill, which also failed.

A spokesman for Wellstone's campaign said Thursday that the ads are being paid for by the Virginia-based group that is actually an organization of the American Insurance Association, according to the Star Tribune. A spokesman for the group denied the association to the newspaper, and Coleman said he had no prior knowledge that the ad time had been purchased or the content of the spots.

A Coleman aide told the Pioneer Press Thursday that it's a "third-party ad" that the campaign hadn't seen or heard prior to its airing. "We've been against third-party ads, and we've articulated that to the Wellstone campaign," Albert Maruggi told the newspaper.