Mississippi senator Thad Cochran is facing an uphill battle in his Republican primary campaign against Tea Party-backed state senator Chris McDaniel, but he isn’t going down without a fight.

Over the weekend, the Cochran campaign released a new ad featuring clips from McDaniel’s time as a right-wing talk radio host.

“It’s so interesting to see this woman, basically using her [censored]…using her breasts to run for office,” McDaniel says in one clip.

“Mamasita, hey hot momma. You know you’re a fine looking young thing,” he says in another.

Perhaps most provocatively, given the expected conservative nature of the electorate in the June 23 runoff, the ad concludes with McDaniel’s vision of a libertarian platform: “I think the platform is, a free hooker and blow for everybody.”

The ad is currently only appearing on the web, although Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall reports being told that it will air on television this week.

The latest attack is a clear attempt to draw a contrast between the genteel six-term incumbent and McDaniel, whom the Cochran campaign has criticized as a loose cannon. It fits neatly with the bitterly negative tone of the race, which has been dominated by accusations that Cochran is too weak to stand up to Democrats in Congress, and that McDaniel was complicit in an incident in which one of his supporters broke into a nursing home to surreptitiously videotape Cochran’s bedridden wife.

Polls suggest that Cochran and McDaniel are virtually tied in the runoff; the latest survey, released on Sunday by Democratic firm Chism Strategies, found Cochran ahead by just 1 percent.

Screenshot: ThadforMS/YouTube