Republican candidate for governor Tom Emmer takes aim at his opponents DFLer Mark Dayton and Independence Party's Tom Horner in his latest television ad.

In the ad, which putatively is about jobs, Emmer pitches himself as a government outsider.

"My opponents have lived off government or lived in government their entire careers," he says.

Those claims are a bit thin.

Horner has never been elected to public office but was a U.S. Senate staffer from 1978 to 1985. He has spent most of the rest of his career as a public relations executive. His firm has has some government contracts but he has said those contracts represented less than 15 percent of his firm's work. (That claim is tough to verify since he has not released complete client lists.)

Emmer's claim better fits Dayton. Dayton has spent ten years in elected office (as state auditor and as a U.S. Senator) but has spent longer employed by government -- he was a U.S. Senate staffer in the 1970s and a state commissioner twice in the late 1970s to mid-1980s.

But Emmer has actually has spent more years in elected office than either of his opponents. He has been in the Legislature since 2004 and spent ten years on the Delano and Independence city councils before that.

Dayton released a jobs ad this week, too. In an email to supporters Saturday, Dayton's older son also said the campaign would start running this ad -- it is a 30-second version of the one-minute ad his sons cut for his father.

The ad:

The transcript:

TOM EMMER: I'm Tom Emmer. The biggest issue facing Minnesota? Jobs. I'll attract and keep jobs here by reforming and redesigning government. My opponents have lived off government or lived in government their entire careers. We need someone from the outside to shake things up. I'll set priorities, and fund what's important – like our schools. My budget plan is the only one that actually balances the budget. It's the only honest plan. It's the only one that does not raise taxes.

VOICE OVER: Tom Emmer for Governor.