COLUMBUS - State Sen. Steve Stivers (R-Columbus) admits that Franklin Co. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Columbus) is better known among voters than he is from her failed bid to win the seat two years ago, but Stivers' campaign is out to change that beginning tomorrow with a television ad.

The 30-second spot airing tomorrow morning on broadcast television introduces Stivers as a man of solid character, a message vouched by those who served with him in Iraq and Kuwait during his National Guard tour there four years ago (see the ad below).

The campaign moved up its tentative start for television ads to this week from Sept. 9, as PolitickerOH.com reported earlier. Stivers ad comes a week after Kilroy's ads began airing and also after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee began attacking Stivers on television last week.

As a Lieutenant Colonel in the Ohio Army National Guard, Stivers was in charge of delivering mail via convoys from Kuwait through Iraq. Stivers said some of the convoys had come under attack but no one was killed. Stivers said he rode in some of these convoys but said he was not scared of going to the theater because of his years of training and trust in comrades.

Stivers said his Iraq experience is not a qualification for serving in Congress so much as explains his character.

"In Washington we need people with character. We need people who will stand up and say ‘no' when there's time to say ‘no.' we need people who aren't part of this partisan politics that want to blame everybody and can bring people together to get things done. And we need people with character who can stand up to special interests," he said.

On Iraq, Stivers said he supports drawing down forces based on recommendations from combat commanders on the ground, not a fixed timeline.

"We need to bring our soldiers home, but we need to do it in a smart way so that we don't make the situation in Iraq much worse," he said.

Regarding the practically unprecedented use of National Guard and and Armed Forces reserve forces to supply the Iraq war, Stivers said the Bush administration failed to properly call up units so that they are not deployed too often, especially without sufficient notice.