"I'm laughing because it has the same effect as lighting it on fire and burning it," the Northern Kentucky Republican said in an interview Monday. "To run ads two years before an election is campaign malpractice."

"What it could do is up my name ID statewide," Massie added, "but two years from now nobody's going to remember what the ad was about." The United Democracy Project, the political action committee arm of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has unfurled a $328,675 television campaign assailing Massie as hostile to Israel, citing a handful of votes in April.