Bush-Kerry ad wars commence

The John F. Kerry campaign chose the advertising theme "a lifetime of service and strength." Rolled out last Monday, it is the centerpiece of a $25 million ad buy -- the biggest yet in Kerry's presidential quest -- designed to give voters a positive feeling about a politician well known in New England and Washington, D.C., but not in broad swaths of the country.

Amid family photos, film of Kerry in the jungles of Vietnam, and testimonials from former crewmates as well as his wife and daughter, the ads' message is that the presumptive Democratic nominee is a solid citizen, brave soldier, and beloved husband and father who could easily be the next occupant of the White House.

The Kerry ads, however, are being aired in the teeth of a $70 million ad blitz by President Bush's campaign that is trying to sell an alternative view of the Massachusetts senator as someone who waffles on issues, is weak on defense, and is prone to raising taxes.

Positive Kerry and negative Kerry: In this early onslaught of campaign ads, both campaigns are competing to create a definitive public portrait -- albeit very different ones -- of the challenger.

"President Bush is known to almost every American, and his image and record is well established," said Terry Holt, a Bush campaign spokesman. "John Kerry is the new unknown quantity."

William Benoit, professor of communications at the University of Missouri, said the ad wars reflect "a Bush rush to define Kerry early . . . before he gets a chance to define himself."

The fate of these dueling strategies could hinge on what proves more persuasive: Kerry's effort to sell himself to the electorate, or Bush's efforts to tarnish Kerry's image among voters.

"Voters learn more from negative spots, especially when the other guy [Bush] goes first," said Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin.

John Franzn, a political media consultant who works for Democrats and liberal groups, said: "The conventional wisdom in this business is that it is easier to make a negative ad stick in the public's mind than a positive ad. . . . And if you're essentially dealing with a blank slate, they work all the more."

Benoit, who has tracked more than 900 presidential campaign ads dating to 1952 for positive and negative messages, said about 80 percent of Kerry's statements have been positive while more than half the messages in Bush's ads have been negative.

"I'm really surprised that an incumbent would go so negative so early," said Patrick Meirick, assistant professor of communications at the University of Oklahoma, which houses an archive of about 70,000 political ads. But he acknowledged that "negative information tends to grab people's attention more, almost on a kind of hardwired level."

The political landscape is littered with memorable presidential campaign attack ads. There was President Bush's 1988 spot that depicted an uncomfortable-looking Michael S. Dukakis riding in a tank and assailed the challenger's defense credentials. A 1960 ad for John F. Kennedy used President Dwight Eisenhower's words when he was asked to name an important idea generated by Vice President Richard Nixon and he responded that "if you'll give me a week, I might think of one." The undisputed king of negative spots was President Lyndon Johnson's 1964 "Daisy" ad that opened with a little girl peeling petals off a flower and ended with a nuclear explosion as Johnson warned of the stakes in his race against Barry Goldwater.

Analysts have a tougher time recalling notable positive presidential advertising, although a frequently cited example is Ronald Reagan's sunny "Morning Again in America" ad campaign in 1984 when he was a popular incumbent on his way to a landslide victory.

Since late April, Kerry has run a series of ads intended to introduce himself to the public, which may not have a strong sense of his career and campaign yet. Speaking forcefully in the ads, he announces his plan to enlist greater international support in Iraq and emphasizes his priorities of health care, education, jobs, and national security. The new 60-second biographical ads unveiled last week are more personal.

"I think the Kerry positive ads are good," Goldstein said. "The single best message for John Kerry is his record in Vietnam. I just don't understand why they weren't aired weeks ago."

But Michael Jeary, president of the Della Femina Rothschild Jeary and Partners ad agency, said Kerry's ads need to answer the question, "So what are you going to do for me as president?"

With the battering that Bush has taken in recent months -- from the surge in violence in Iraq to the Sept. 11 panel hearings and outrage over abuse of Iraq prisoners -- Kerry could benefit in the weeks ahead by presenting himself as an alternative to an incumbent weighted down with problems. But to date, evidence suggests that Bush's attacks may have had a bigger effect on the perception of Kerry.

A poll by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey indicated that in the 18 battleground states where the television ad campaign is being waged, unfavorable ratings for Kerry have been driven up from 28 percent to 36 percent while his favorability numbers dropped from 41 percent to 35 percent since the beginning of March.

Goldstein said one way to tell whether Bush's ads are working is to "look at what [Jay] Leno's saying. . . . Six weeks ago, Kerry was not a flip-flopper; now he largely is." A survey of talk-show comics by the Washington-based Center for Media and Public Affairs, conducted for the first four months of 2004, found that Bush is the butt of more jokes than Kerry, with Bush's intelligence being the primary target.

But Tuesday, "Tonight Show" host Leno joked about Kerry's recent bicycle accident, noting that "when the police arrived, Kerry was well enough to give conflicting reports to the officers about what happened."