Launching its first TV ad targeting the closely contested Colorado Senate race on Tuesday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has taken a page out of the Tea Party playbook in attempting to strike a Constitutional chord.

The ad hits Republican nominee Ken Buck over recently unearthed comments he made at a campaign event in June of last year, in which he indicated that he would support repealing the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, which establishes direct election of U.S. senators by voters, rather than state legislators.

"That's right, Ken Buck actually proposed ending our right to vote for our own senators," a narrator says in the DSCC ad. "Rewriting the Constitution, ending our right to vote? Ken Buck's just too extreme for Colorado voters."

Earlier this month, Buck backtracked on his previously espoused support of repealing the 17th Amendment, telling the Huffington Post, "It doesn't make sense to repeal the 17th Amendment, and I have said it a dozen of times."

Buck campaign press secretary Owen Loftus said that Buck initially supported repeal of the 17th Amendment, a widespread Tea Party tenet, due to concerns that popularly elected senators were institutionally beholden to special interests. Loftus said that Buck then reconsidered the very night that he was asked the question by a voter and contemplated more deeply the notion that special interest conflicts existed even before the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913.

"He actually called the gentleman who asked him the question and let him know that he did not support repeal of the 17th Amendment," Loftus told RealClearPolitics.

The DSCC ad is part of the Democrats' aggressive push to brand Tea Party-affiliated GOP nominees as right-wing radicals, a tactic that they have thus far employed with some apparent success in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's race against Republican challenger Sharron Angle in Nevada.

Buck is trying to keep the conversation focused squarely on jobs, as he stumps against incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, who held off a tough primary challenge from former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff.

"The main thing this shows is that the Democrats are only concerned about saving one job right now, and that's the appointed Senator Bennet," Loftus said. "We have millions of people out of work right now, and Bennet's not talking about that because he knows he helped push people out of work."

Recent polls have shown that the Colorado race is neck and neck.

Watch the new DSCC ad, "We The People," below.