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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (79781)	10/22/2004 1:38:32 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793838

Josh reacts to "Wolves." Let the Bush slime commence! Campaign Extra on the Bush campaign's hideous new ad.... October 22, 2004 - Opinion Line Our two main weapons are fear and fear...and fear. "The populace, I think, is really scared. The Twin Towers -- if that's a prelude to what's going to come, we better do something." -- Charles Stirzel of Richboro, Pa., a Bush supporter, quoted in today's Philadelphia Inquirer. Quick -- name some famous presidential ads before this year. Let's see, there's LBJ's 1964 "Daisy" ad (with the mushroom cloud), Reagan's good-cop "Morning in America" and bad-cop "Bear" in the woods ad in 1984. What they had in common a Madison Avenue car-ad feel -- trying to evoke a mood rather than make an intellectual point. Today, the Bush-Cheney campaign unveils a major new ad it calls, simply, "Wolves." It may become the most talked about spot of the 2004 race -- especially if Bush wins. Moody and ominous, the 30-second ad mines the shadowy light-and-dark world of a mysterious forest, with an occasional nano-second flash of danger, before showing the large pack (sleeper cell?) of wolves ready to attack at the first sign of weakness. At the end, the pack is rousing, ready to pounce on....the election of President Kerry? "Wolves" is the Democrats' worst nightmare -- slick, evocative, memorable, and utterly misleading. Like Bush's other terrorism spots, it seeks to make hay of a Democratic effort to cut intelligence funding after "the first attack on the World Trade Center." How many discerning viewers know that's a reference to the 1993 attack that killed 6 people, not the devastating suicide attack of 9/11? More to the point, the ad debuts on the very day that the Washington Post rips apart the real Bush record on fighting al-Qaeda, marked by stupidity and blown chances. Doesn't matter. In the rock, paper and scissors of presidential politics, fear is rock. And the Bush people are getting this message out. A new MSNBC-Knight-Ridder poll of Pennsylvania finds that -- in spite of a lagging economy -- terrorism and homeland security is now the No. 1 issue here. It's cited by 25 percent of voters, compared to 20 percent naming the economy (which was No. 1 last month) and 13 percent saying Iraq. And who are these newly fearful voters supporting? Guess. In September, terrorism was the No. 1 issue for 36 percent of Bush voters. Now, it's the No. 1 issue of 45 percent of W.'s backers. (Overall, the Mason-Dixon poll had Bush up a point in Pennsylvania, while Kerry had been up a point here one month earlier). Don't get played, Pennsylvanians. The main reason that al-Qaeda remains a threat to America is largely because of the inept and inadequate Bush response to it. Don't be fooled by a pack of wolves.