Ad war targets N.E. senators on Alito nomination

WASHINGTON -- Liberal and conservative groups are targeting New England senators in a new ad war over Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr., seeking to influence three moderate Republican senators who represent Maine and Rhode Island.

Today, a coalition of leading liberal groups is launching its first major advertising push against Alito, depicting the appeals court judge as the choice of the ''right wing" who would limit individual freedoms. The television ad flashes photos of prominent conservatives Pat Buchanan, Gary Bauer, and Rush Limbaugh to portray Alito as a favorite of ''extremists."

The ad is airing on cable nationally and on local stations in the home states of Republican senators Olympia J. Snowe and Susan M. Collins of Maine, and Lincoln D. Chafee of Rhode Island.

Conservative groups, who have already been running ads supporting Alito's nomination, also unveiled two new ad campaigns of their own. One is a 60-second spot featuring former Alito law clerks who depict the federal judge as fair-minded and lacking any political agenda; it will run on local TV outlets in Maine and elsewhere, in addition to CNN and Fox News across the country.

In addition to the New England senators, conservative organizations are concentrating on Democratic senators from states President Bush carried last fall.

The start of the liberal groups' coordinated television campaign against Alito occurs at a time of increasing partisan rancor over the nomination. Many political observers believe that going directly to voters is the only way the minority Democrats can build enough support in the Senate to block Alito's confirmation. Nomination hearings begin Jan. 9.

Nan Aron, president of the liberal group Alliance for Justice, appeared at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Scarborough, Maine, yesterday to launch grass-roots efforts aimed at defeating Alito. Collins, Snowe, and Chafee all support abortion rights and have raised concerns about aspects of Alito's judicial record. Aron said her group believes they can be persuaded to cross party lines and join Democrats in voting against Alito.

''They're three of our target senators, and we expect at the end of the day that they will vote against Alito," Aron said.

The senators have said that they will not make up their minds until after Alito's confirmation hearings, and that they won't be influenced by advertisements run by interest groups.

Though the liberals' ad comes just a few days after the disclosure that Alito once wrote in a job application that he opposes a constitutional right to abortion, the liberal groups chose to mention the abortion issue as only one of many issues in which they argue Alito is out of step with the majority of the public.

''As a judge, Alito ruled to make it easier for corporations to discriminate-- even voted to approve the strip search of a 10-year-old girl," the ad's voice-over says. ''As a government lawyer, Alito wrote 'the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.' "

The 30-second spot is being funded jointly by the Alliance for Justice, People for the American Way, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, which announced its formal opposition to Alito yesterday. It is scheduled to air today through Tuesday, and other ads are in the works for the coming weeks.

The ad follows a smaller campaign, launched by People for the American Way but not the other liberal groups two weeks ago, arguing in broader terms that Alito would threaten ''fundamental rights and freedoms." That ad also ran in local markets in Maine and Rhode Island.

The conservative groups' ads are designed to tout Alito's legal credentials and question the motives of his critics.

''He doesn't have a political agenda. He doesn't prejudge any case that comes before him," one of Alito's former clerks, Michael Park, says in the ad sponsored by Progress for America.

Another conservative group, the Committee for Justice, yesterday announced a new 30-second ad attacking the liberal groups who are opposing Alito. The ads will run mostly in states carried by Bush but represented in the Senate by one or more Democrats.

''They want to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance and are fighting to redefine traditional marriage," the voice-over says. ''They support partial-birth abortion, sanction the burning of the American flag, and even oppose pornography filters on public library computers."

Though Alito's nomination has faced few major obstacles to date in the GOP-controlled Senate, one moderate Democrat who voted for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. expressed reservations yesterday about Alito.

Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado, said after his meeting with Alito that comments he made in the 1985 job application cause ''grave concern about whether the progress that we have made on civil rights in this country is going to take a step backward if he serves on the Supreme Court."

''I am concerned that, frankly, the court would swing so far to the right, we can set back the progress of the country," said Salazar, who was part of a bipartisan group of 14 senators that defused a controversy over filibusters of judges earlier this year.

Rick Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com.