Kerry to Begin Wave of New Ads to Counter Steady Bush Attack
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By DAVID M. HALBFINGER and JIM RUTENBERG
The New York Times
May 3, 2004
nytimes.com
BOSTON — Senator John Kerry is set to introduce a major television advertising push on Monday that will highlight his biography and service in Vietnam, which his advisers have always viewed as his strong suits, campaign aides said on Sunday.
The new effort comes as many Democrats have expressed concern that Mr. Kerry is not moving quickly enough to answer President Bush's sustained advertising attack and has not done enough to convey an overarching message.
Republicans and Democrats who monitor advertising purchases said the Kerry campaign had committed to spend up to $27 million for more than three weeks. Mr. Kerry's aides would not comment on the exact size of the buy, except to say it would most likely set records.
The new campaign will not only run in the 17 or 18 battleground states where both candidates' ads have primarily been focused this year, but also in two states where Mr. Bush won comfortably in 2000: Louisiana and Colorado, people who monitor advertising purchases said.
Campaign aides and other Democrats have argued for weeks that while Mr. Bush's heavy advertising barrage may have defined Mr. Kerry in a negative light for some voters, there is still plenty of time to change perceptions. The new campaign is to include two spots, aides said. They will tell his life story and lay out the major themes of his candidacy.
Mr. Kerry's aides note that most polls show the race to be neck and neck despite the tens of millions of dollars that Mr. Bush has spent on advertising.
"The only thing it's done is prevented Bush from having a freefall," said a senior Kerry aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "That, for an incumbent, is not a good place to be."
On the eve of the rollout of the new commercials, Mr. Kerry flew home to Massachusetts on Sunday for a few hours of down time in his Beacon Hill townhouse, but wound up taking a tumble during a 20-mile bike ride and suffered a minor scrape on his arm.
Mr. Kerry left his home in Boston wearing a helmet, a yellow T-shirt and bike shorts. Just before noon he passed a cluster of photographers who had been positioned by his campaign on Longfellow Bridge, over the Charles River. He was trailed by three Secret Service bodyguards on bicycles and others in a chase car.
At about 1:30 p.m. in Concord — 20 miles northwest of Boston — Mr. Kerry "hit a patch of sand going very slowly, took a slight spill, got up and brushed it off," said Jim Loftus, a press aide. "He has a small scrape."
Mr. Loftus said Mr. Kerry had been "chuckling" as he described the accident to him in a brief telephone conversation.
An aide said a brake on the bicycle was bent in the spill. The senator caught a lift in the Secret Service chase vehicle to a nearby bike shop where he left the bike to be repaired. |
