Adding agitation
Long after the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth began attacking John Kerry's Vietnam War record and his role in the antiwar movement, the Democratic candidate struck back last week with a TV ad that went right to the heart: It featured the widow of a friend killed in Vietnam. "[My husband] wouldn't believe the attacks against John Kerry on television," says the widow, Judy Droz Keyes. "The John Kerry my husband served with was a brave and good man." The swift vets, meanwhile, were back at it with a final ad, this time upping the ante to 90 Vietnam vets decrying Kerry's 1971 "war crimes" testimony.
Last week's volleys illustrated the degree to which the presidential campaigns and so-called 527 and other independent groups are using ads to appeal to viewers' emotions and to question the very character of their opponents. "The daisy ad is always cited as very negative, but it was substantive in that it talked about nuclear war," says Brown University's Darrell West, referring to Lyndon Johnson's classic 1964 spot attacking Barry Goldwater's belligerent rhetoric against the Soviet Union; it juxtaposed a little girl picking the petals off a daisy with a nuclear mushroom cloud. "The stuff we see today is challenging honesty, integrity, and patriotism. It's much more personal."
For independent advocacy groups--which, in the wake of recent campaign finance legislation, have replaced political parties as conduits for unregulated "soft money," spending an estimated $100 million or more this year--that means going negative and getting personal. A recent ad by the Progress for America Voter Fund flashes pictures of terrorists like Osama bin Laden with a bone-chilling voiceover: "Would you trust Kerry against these fanatic killers?"
Ordinary people. The push to define Kerry in personally negative terms echoes the strategy of the Bush campaign itself--which launched attack ads against Kerry in March. But 80 percent of the ad cash spent by independent groups so far comes from anti-Bush outfits, which have turned increasingly to testimonial ads. A MoveOn ad released last week features a woman whose son was killed in Iraq, asking "How do you think we felt when we heard . . . there was no link between Iraq and 9/11?" The ad attempts to connect with audiences emotionally in a way that many experts say Kerry has failed to do. "This is an age of political cynicism," says West. "We don't trust the rich and famous, but ordinary people have authenticity."
Insiders say Bush may yet launch his own testimonial ads, with the likes of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and expect more spots from outside groups. Says Evan Tracey, founder of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group: "There is probably more money than there is television time to buy at this point." -Dan Gilgoff and Bret Schulte
This story appears in the October 25, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.