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Democrat Gabrielle Giffords wants a new television ad criticizing her taken off the air, but Cox Media has no plans to pull it.

In a letter sent Wednesday from Giffords' attorney to Cox Media, the campaign urges the company to take an ad paid for by the Minuteman Political Action Committee off the air since the Minutemen haven't been able to clearly back up claims they make about Congressional District 8 candidate Giffords in the ad.

In the letter, the campaign says the "cable system should immediately prevent broadcast of the advertisement and deny any future sale of time."

But for Cox general manager Holly Capps it's a free-speech issue.

"We facilitate a political dialogue and allow the voters to make up their own minds," she said. "Giffords is allowed to run her own ads stating her side."

The 30-second spot says Giffords supports Social Security, welfare and food stamps for illegal immigrants. Giffords says those claims simply are not true, and the group hasn't provided any hard evidence to the contrary.

In an interview the day the ad premiered, Minuteman spokes-man Rick Shaftan said the statements were based on Giffords' opposition to Proposition 200 in 2004, which didn't deal with those things but did prevent illegal residents from getting state benefits.

Shaftan questions why Giffords would oppose such assistance on the state level, but not on the federal level. Giffords says her opposition to 200 had to do with voter disenfranchisement.

After a story focusing on the ad and its lack of references ran last week in the Star, Shaftan e-mailed with his explanation as to why part of the ad is correct: "Illegal aliens get food stamps through children they have who were born in the United States. Giffords opposes banning children of illegals from automatic U.S. citizenship and therefore supports allowing illegal aliens to receive food stamps, even if it is 'technically' for their U.S. citizen children."

Shaftan said the Minutemen, who support Republican Randy Graf, plan to run a lot more ads before Election Day to increase Graf's chances of winning over Giffords.

But in the sea of political propaganda there's still something missing in this general election race: an ad that explains why voters should support Graf.

Have you seen those Raúl Grijalva bumper stickers around town? The ones that are a big bushy mustache, mimicking Grijalva's.

Well, that 'stache is now getting national attention. In a recent issue of The Hill, Grijalva's mustache is described as "spectacular, trailing down around his mouth and dipping into a perfect frown in brown, gray and caramel."

Grijalva is not the only one playing off looks. A new flier is out in support of Grijalva's Republican competitor in Congressional District 7, Ron Drake. The flier, which the Drake campaign says it does not endorse, shows pictures of Drake and Grijalva side by side, with the title "leadership you can look up to."

Drake, former mayor of Avondale, is 6'7". Grijalva's campaign says he's 5'7" — "with boots on a good day."

Last week, Notebook brought you some spicy comments Democrats had made about their Republican competitors. At that get-together, state Rep. Tom Prezelski called competitor Bruce Murchison "stupid."

Prezelski called to tell us he contacted Murchison and apologized after the comments were published.