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With a new poll showing a neck-and-neck race between Hawaii Sen. Colleen Hanabusa and Congressman Charles Djou, the two are trading barbs about the contents of campaign commercials.

The Hawaii Republican Party called a press conference Tuesday morning to refute the claims in two recent ads paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a day after Hanabusa’s campaign complained about a misleading spot from Djou.

A quick look at all three commercials and the responses from the parties involved reveals that the truth, as it often does, lies somewhere in the middle.

• Djou is taking it on the chin for his support of education. Democrats point out that the fiscally conservative congressman voted against $40 million “to help keep Hawaii’s schools open.” Bottom line is that he did vote against a bill that will direct that much federal money to the state Department of Education, but the threat that schools would close without the money is unfounded. (Please read our in-depth analysis

• Hanabusa is presented by Djou as not believing there’s any government waste. Djou’s campaign cut a short clip from a debate at the start of the year where Hanabusa said, “I can tell you right now, in government I don’t think there’s waste, per se.” The problem is what his video editors left out. The ad is misleading. She was talking about state government after Gov. Linda Lingle cut it to deal with the fallout from the Great Recession. (Please read our in-depth analysis of the Djou ad.)