NYT : In Campaign Ads for Democrats, Bush Is the Star

Sunday, September 17, 2006

In Campaign Ads for Democrats, Bush Is the Star

By ADAM NAGOURNEY | September 17, 2006

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 — From Rhode Island to New Mexico, from Connecticut to Tennessee, President Bush is emerging as the marquee name in this fall’s Congressional elections — courtesy not of his Republican Party but of the Democrats.

A review of dozens of campaign commercials finds that Mr. Bush has become the star of the Democrats’ advertisement war this fall. He is pictured standing alone and next to Republican senators and members of Congress, his name intoned by ominous-sounding announcers, and Republican candidates are damned in the advertisements by the number of times they have voted with Mr. Bush in Congress.

Not surprisingly, given that Mr. Bush’s job approval rating continues to drift around 40 percent, it is hard to spot the president in any of dozens of Republican advertisements that were reviewed. But in what may be taken as a leading indicator of changing Republican tastes, Senator John McCain of Arizona is popping up everywhere.

There is Mr. Bush on television screens in Colorado, leaning over to plant a big kiss on the forehead of Representative Marilyn Musgrave, a Republican, in an advertisement urging the election of Angie Paccione, a Democrat.

There is Mr. Bush again on the television screens in New Mexico, standing on a stage shoulder-to-shoulder with Representative Heather A. Wilson, a Republican struggling to keep her seat. “Heather Wilson supports George Bush on the war in Iraq with no questions asked,” the announcer says, in an advertisement for Patricia Madrid, the Democratic challenger.

The White House has entered this campaign season looking to seize control of the political dialogue by moving the debate away from issues like Iraq and to Mr. Bush’s role in the campaign against terrorism. The decision by Democrats to invest in advertising directly attacking the war in Iraq, the administration’s war on terrorism and the once overwhelmingly popular president is a marked turn from how they handled these issues in 2002 and 2004, and is one of the most significant thematic developments of the campaign.

The emergence of this recurrent theme in Democratic advertising, reflected in advertisements made by dozens of candidates, as well as the party committees, is not a coordinated push by the legions of consultants, party leaders, campaign managers and candidates who are, through their disparate efforts, trying to find issues that could create a Democratic story line to counter the Republicans. Democrats said that building advertisements involving Mr. Bush was almost an obvious thing to do, given his lack of popularity, and reflects the effort by many in the party to turn this election into a national referendum on Mr. Bush.

“In certain districts he’s exactly who we want to pivot off,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois Democrat leading the effort to win the House. “I tell all the candidates: him and his agenda are on the ballot this year.”

Kenneth M. Goldstein, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin who studies campaign advertisements, said the focus by Democrats on Iraq and security was a sharp shift from what he had observed in the last two election cycles. Then, Mr. Bush was far more popular and public opinion on the war had not changed, but Mr. Goldstein argued that the Democrats still may have made a mistake in not trying to at least challenge Republicans on the war.

“If you’re running a campaign, you try to engage on a subject or change the subject,” Mr. Goldstein said. “The Democratic strategy in 2002 and 2004 was very much to change the subject. They kept trying to ignore it and change the subject. I guess they realize that they couldn’t do that.”

The strategy has risks. In part, the goal of the Democrats’ advertisements is to rile up their base. But Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster, said that the constant attacks on Mr. Bush appeared to be accomplishing something Republicans had been unable to accomplish on their own: riling up Republican base voters.

“One thing we are seeing in our polling is that the Democratic campaign is helping to jazz up Republican voters,” Mr. Bolger said. “There are two concerns among Republicans: Is our base going to turn out and how are we going to get out swing voters. The Democrats are taking care of our first concern.”

Many Republicans, and some Democrats, say it will be hard for Democrats to win unless they go beyond attacking Republicans and offer a program of their own. And Ken Mehlman, the Republican national chairman, said the Republicans’ own experience in politics suggested that running against someone who is not on the ballot is challenging. “The last time this kind of morph ad was tried was in ’98 when we tried to nationalize the races against Clinton and it didn’t work,” he said. “I think if Democrats are talking about Bush instead of their opponents they are missing an important mark here.”

Whatever the case, Mr. Bush can be found in Democratic advertisements running in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Arizona, Tennessee, New Jersey and other states.

In New Jersey, Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat facing a tough election battle, strode along the New Jersey waterfront, attacking the president — rather than, say, the Republican he is running against this fall, Thomas H. Kean Jr. — as failing to improve security in the nation’s ports.

“Five years after 9/11, President Bush still doesn’t get it: homeland security starts here,” Mr. Menendez says.

In Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic challenger to Senator Lincoln Chafee, turns to a room of voters and says, “I want to make it absolutely clear that we need to effect a responsible deployment of our troops out of Iraq.” In South Florida, Representative E. Clay Shaw Jr. is pictured between photographs of Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, under the words, “Shaw votes for the Bush/Cheney agenda 90 percent of the time.” The announcer says that Mr. Shaw, who is facing a tough challenge from Ron Klein, is “refusing to question their handling of the war in Iraq.”

Mr. Bush is shown sitting with Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, as the caption helpfully notes that Mr. Santorum “votes with George Bush 98 percent of the time, even to privatize Social Security.”

Republicans have responded with advertisements attacking Democrats for raising taxes and as being weak on national security. And they have invoked their own political totems: In Indiana, Republicans use a picture of Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader who would probably become the next speaker should Democrats take the House, in an advertisement attacking Brad Ellsworth, a Democratic sheriff running a very threatening challenge to Representative John Hostettler.

“Pelosi and other Democrats want to raise your taxes, cut and run in Iraq and give amnesty to illegal immigrants,” the announcer says.

But for sheer star power, nothing matches a president, as Republicans certainly demonstrated in 2002 and 2004, when Mr. Bush was a constant presence in almost all the Republican campaigns. By contrast, Mr. Bush’s image this fall is being invoked by Democrats as a proxy for Americans who want change in Washington, or who oppose the war in Iraq; or who think Mr. Bush has not done enough to protect the nation from future terrorist attacks; or who are upset with high gasoline prices; or who are angry with changes Mr. Bush has pressed in Medicare or tried to make in Social Security.

“It’s not just photos,” said John Lapp, who runs the Democratic campaign committee’s independent advertising program. “It’s statements and actions and votes that show a pattern of people being with Bush.”

Democratic strategists argued that Mr. Bush was a powerful figure in advertisements, particularly when linked to the unpopular war in Iraq.

“The war is a dominant issue,” said Steve Murphy, a consultant whose firm made the Iraq advertisement for Ms. Madrid, as well as other advertisements that point to Iraq. “For all these Republican candidates who are going through gyrations to distance themselves from Bush — well, if they support Bush on the war, there is nothing more illustrative of the fact that they are in bed with Bush.”

Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat leading his party’s campaign to take back the Senate, said, “In 2004, people were still happy with Bush’s course in Iraq. Now they are not.”

That shows in terrorism, too. Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., a Democratic candidate for Senate in Tennessee, walks through an airplane as he criticizes the administration’s efforts in protecting the nation from terrorism, and mocks any suggestion that the White House deserves credit for the arrests in Britain of a ring of terror suspects accused of plotting to bomb airlines headed for the United States.

“Thank God the British stopped them,” Mr. Ford says, adding: “Today our ports and borders remain vulnerable to terrorists.”

It is still early in the campaign advertising season, and both parties are holding back money for the final weeks. Republicans in particular say they have produced advertisements attacking Democratic candidates for positions or votes they have taken during their campaigns, or questionable personal business dealings, that are more effective to unleash later, when responding is more difficult.

Party officials said spending on advertising is keeping pace with previous years. But there are two important differences: For one, political strategists view television — in this age of cable, TiVo, and the Internet — as a less effective medium than it once was for campaign advertising, and are much more apt to invest significant amounts of money in voter turnout operations. In addition, campaign strategists say they believe they can get notable viewership of campaign advertisements by posting them on their Web sites, or on YouTube, a popular video-sharing Web site.