Last night must have been a good time to leave your TV off, FL!
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washingtonpost.com
Calif. Hopefuls Make Last-Ditch Ad Appeals
Many Spots Running -- Almost Nonstop -- in Final Days and Hours of Campaign
By Evelyn Nieves
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 7, 2003; Page A10
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 6 -- The square-jawed candidate for governor stands against a gray background, his head and shoulders centered on the screen. He is wearing a white shirt under a black jacket -- serious clothes -- as he talks directly to the audience.
"California is in trouble," he says, "because the politicians have let us down." A few minutes, maybe a situation comedy later, he says it again. Then, in a few minutes, again. And again and again.
As if reams of newspaper stories, nonstop radio and television news coverage and endless punditry on the recall election were not enough, the three major candidates vying for Gov. Gray Davis's job, not to mention his own No on the Recall campaign, bombarded California's airwaves with ads on the last day before Tuesday's election.
The ads seemed to air nearly nonstop. If it was not Lt. Gov. Cruz M. Bustamante making a speech before a cheering crowd, then it was state Sen. Tom McClintock making a speech before a cheering crowd. Or, it was the No on the Recall campaign, blasting actor Arnold Schwarzenegger's inexperience, vagueness and evasiveness. Today it began a double-barreled ad: a pitch to vote "No" on the recall from the state's most popular Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and her stern warnings about how the sexual misconduct accusations 15 women have leveled against the action movie star should be investigated.
The splurge is costing the campaigns millions, as an individual political ad appearing in the state's major media markets costs as much as $2 million for a week's run. The campaigns are spending an estimated $10 million each in the last week, with most of the ads running in the last days and hours, when the undecided voters make up their minds.
Duane Baughman, a national political strategist, said that even if voters are sick to death of the subject, candidates in the recall simply have to spend the money and airtime to make direct last-ditch appeals.
"You have to do it. You have no choice if you're running," Baughman said. "The reality is that in political life, two weeks is an impression, and you have to try to make that impression before time runs out."
For Bustamante, the only major Democratic candidate running in this heavily Democratic state, one ad in rotation begins like a product warning: "After voting no on the recall, you have the right and responsibility to vote for a candidate." Then it shows Bustamante shaking hands with a crowd, addressing a group and asking for their votes. Another begins with the same warning, but then switches to Bustamante standing behind his kitchen counter with his wife and daughter.
McClintock, a conservative Republican with the most experience of those running to replace Davis, uses his ad time to promise to restore fiscal responsibility in the state house and to lower taxes. It ends with the message that polls show McClintock "has the momentum" to win the election. But in the past week, McClintock, seen as a spoiler who might split the vote among Republicans, has dropped in most major polls as Republicans have rallied around Schwarzenegger.
Davis's campaign strategists are trying to make voters take an unvarnished, critical look at Schwarzenegger, they said, appealing to disaffected Democrats they have lost in the recall campaign. So they have responded to his contention that Davis has done nothing but tax and spend by pointing out that Ronald Reagan increased spending more, and that most states, not to mention the federal government, have faced enormous deficits.
The latest ad, which began airing Monday, will most likely be the toughest for the Schwarzenegger campaign to take. In it, Feinstein, in a blue suit against a backdrop of flags, alludes to a series of interviews the Los Angeles Times conducted with 15 women who have accused Schwarzenegger of groping and molesting them over the past 25 years. "In recent days, serious allegations have been made about Davis's opponent," she says, "and they deserve serious consideration." "On Tuesday," she implores, "vote no."
Baughman called Bustamante's ad at the lectern and shaking hands with voters among the worst he had ever seen because "it reinforces the impression that he's an insider." But Baughman said Schwarzenegger's ads had given viewers the impression the candidate needs to make.
"The impression they make is that he's an outsider," Baughman said. "And Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to be viewed as a political outsider. That stuff about the women rolls off him like oil off a seal."
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