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In a race that has seen a relentless barrage of negative ads from both campaigns and outside influence groups, the Colorado Senate campaign took a gentler turn on Friday as Republican Ken Buck went up with a new television spot that does not even mention Democratic incumbent Michael Bennet.

The new spot, titled, "Good Man," features a female "senior activist," who touts Buck's outsider credentials and notes that senior citizens are "very vulnerable people."

"Politicians are usually there for your vote -- they do their politickin' and you never hear from them again," the woman says. "Ken is not that kind of person."

The ad's direct appeal to senior citizens serves as a rebuttal to Democrats' warnings that Buck would lead the charge to privatize Social Security, but its positive overtones -- somewhat unusual for an ad in a heated race this late in the election season -- are an indication that Buck's campaign is concerned about how Bennet and national Democrats have defined him.

Colorado pollster Floyd Ciruli said that he was not surprised that Buck would turn to a positive spot at this stage of the campaign.

"That line that he listens, that he's different, that he won't go to Washington and become something else -- that he's authentic -- I think is his absolute strength," Ciruli said.

The Buck campaign can afford to air a positive spot, since it has received more than $1.8 million from outside organizations that have hit Bennet relentlessly, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Club For Growth and Karl Rove's American Crossroads.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched its own trifecta of ads condemning Buck, a tea party-backed district attorney, on Monday.

On Thursday, Democrats seized upon their latest line of attack when they touted newly unearthed footage from June of Buck stating that the private sector would be a more appropriate venue for operating veterans' hospitals than the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Last week, the Bennet campaign launched an ad hitting Buck over his anti-abortion stance, marking a rare instance of politicking on social issues in this electoral cycle.

"It's smear and run," Buck spokesperson Owen Loftus said when asked about Bennet's abortion ad. "They're trying to smear Ken Buck and run away from their record. Unfortunately, the main issues people care about are jobs and the economy."

Ciruli, the Colorado pollster, said that the decision to air the abortion ad suggested that the Bennet campaign sensed that it was losing ground against Buck, as recent polls have indicated.

"The Democrats are thinking that this is a two-point race at most for them -- that is to say they're going to lose it by five or win it by one or two, and that one or two could be unaffiliated women on abortion," Ciruli said. "Buck's ability to withstand this just amazes me -- I thought for sure he'd be one or two points down."

But independent Colorado political analyst Eric Sondermann disagreed with Ciruli's conclusion that Buck now has the upper hand. Sondermann still deems the race a true toss-up that will turn on how successful the Democrats are in defining Buck as an extremist.

"Buck is one of these guys that is sort of on the cusp," Sondermann said. "The Democrats want to make him into the next Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle or Rand Paul, but the shoe doesn't entirely fit. Yes, he won the primary with the same base of support, but he probably has more IQ points than some of those people; he's a Princeton grad, and he's played the establishment game to some extent before."

Sondermann said that Buck is trying to portray himself as a conservative within the bounds of the Colorado mainstream -- in the vein of former Republican Senator Wayne Allard -- and has not been prone to the kinds of easy-to-ridicule statements that O'Donnell, Angle and Paul have had to walk back.

But the Bennet campaign argues that Buck's positions on key issues are just as far to the right as the aforementioned Republicans.

"For a year and a half, Ken Buck campaigned as an extreme candidate who wanted to privatize Social Security, support a budget plan that would end Medicare as we know it, while driving up the national deficit, and sought to repeal the tradition of separation of church and state," Bennet spokesperson Trevor Kincaid said.

Buck and Bennet have already held two debates, and they have committed to squaring off four more times before Election Day.