Bush attack ads set negative tone

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1170464,00.html

To be honest, the US presidential campaign seems tame compared with the current shenanigans in the London advertising industry. Nothing the Bush and Kerry camps have come up with to date can match the duplicity of "Osama" Ben Langdon, the new UK chairman of Euro RSCG, nor the wide-eyed, wide-girthed faux innocence of Garry Lace, erstwhile chairman of Grey.

Instead, in the first two attack ads of the campaign to date - released coincidentally on the day of the Madrid bombings - there is a subtly different angle, with a rather less subtle message. The idea is to portray Kerry as weak on protecting Americans at home.

One ad, 100 Days, depicts what would supposedly happen if Kerry became president. Chief among a long list of allegations is that he would "weaken" the controversial post-9/11 Patriot Act, which was designed to increase homeland security. The message is delivered as a shady-looking man is seen on screen, which has forced the administration to refute the accusation that the ad was an anti-Arab slur. The second message in the ad is an attack on Kerry's healthcare plans, suggesting that the Democrat from Massachusetts would be seeking to raise taxes by the extraordinary sum of $900bn! It is a figure the Kerry camp describes as "completely made-up".

The most depressing aspect of the whole affair is that we have some eight months more of this, painful enough in a state like New York, which is regarded as a Democratic shoo-in, but imagine living in Florida, home of the clinching "hanging chad" vote last time out.