Republican Senate candidate Kurt Bills said Wednesday that his campaign manager calling Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar "Daddy's little girl" and a "prom queen" was over the line.

"We should be a little bit more respectful," Bills said.

Bills said he did not approve manager Mike Osskopp's comments sent in press releases late last month and found out about them only after they were sent.

He said he told Osskopp, a former state representative, that those comments were "getting a little aggressive."

"I'd like to have a discussion about the issues, that's what I want," Bills said.

After those releases went out late last month, Bills says he approves any releases that are sent out by his campaign before they are sent.

Osskopp sent out the release calling Klobuchar "Daddy's little girl in reaction to the Star Tribune/Minnesota Poll's result that Klobuchar had a 29 percentage point advantage over Bills, a first term state representative. Klobuchar's father was Star Tribune columnist, retiring in 1996.

A few days earlier, Osskopp sent out a release titled "No Budget, No Solutions, No Press Scrutiny that concluded, "Klobuchar is a Senator, not a Prom Queen."

The releases are still on Bills' web site.

Update: About two hours after this post was published, the releases, which refered to Klobuchar as "Daddy's little girl," appeared to have been taken down from the Bills web site. We've saved the releases and you can see them here and here.