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

[DeepModem Mom]

In Campaign Ads for Democrats, Bush Is the Star
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: 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. 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 the Republican advertisements that were reviewed. 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, but in an advertisement urging the election of Angie Paccione, a Democrat, the president is show leaning over to plant a big kiss on the forehead of Representative Marilyn Musgrave, a Republican. 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.The emergence of this recurrent theme in Democratic advertising is not a coordinated push by the legions of consultants, party leaders, campaign managers and candidates. 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....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/us/politics/17ads.html?hp&ex=1158465600&en=cfd54c99e800c6c3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[bluestateguy]

1. Oh, it's Adam Nagourney

[madfloridian]

2. I like this...good tactic.

:hi: