With Bush's new ads, the TV wars begin

Bush's job-approval ratings have steadily sunk during the Democrats' spirited battle, near or into the danger zone of below 50 percent. Most polls of general-election matchups show Bush losing to Senator Kerry and to Sen. John Edwards (D) of North Carolina, Kerry's main competitor.

"I would have cheered on an effort to have these ads even last fall," says GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway, noting that President Clinton in 1996 began advertising against GOP nominee Bob Dole and the Republican Congress early, a strategy that mortally wounded Mr. Dole's campaign.

For Bush, the initial round of ads will be only positive. "We are launching our advertising campaign with a positive message focused on the president's record and vision for moving the country forward," says Scott Stanzel, a campaign spokesman.

But Democrats expect Bush, after a couple of weeks, to start hitting hard on Kerry - either with straight-up negative ads or with so-called "comparative" ads that spin Kerry's record negatively.

The Democrats are bracing themselves. "The Bush campaign is going to say, 'We've been hammered now for a year, and we're fighting back and doing this positive ad - it's morning again in the White House,' " says Peter Fenn, a Democratic communications specialist, who worked on Al Gore's 2000 campaign. "Then he takes the rest of his $200 million and shoves it down our throats!"

Mr. Fenn also predicts that Kerry's campaign coffers won't be depleted for long. "A lot of people are sitting on their checkbooks to make sure he's the guy," he says. "Once the advertising starts from the Bush campaign, you watch those computers light up.... [Democrats] are going to be poppin' on the Mastercharge bigtime. He's not going to raise $200 or $250 million, but he'll raise enough and fast enough to be up on the air and competitive."

It may be a long eight months between now and election day, as each campaign fears letting up at all, lest the other side gain an advantage. Whether the American public changes the channel or not is another matter.

But for Bush, there's also the advantage of incumbency, in which his daily activities often make the evening news.

In recent months, though, Bush's "bully pulpit" appearances have not served him well. His State of the Union message fell flat on the public's ears, and his interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" sparked criticism even from conservative pundits. Thus the move into paid media, where nothing is left to chance and the script is carefully crafted.

If his outreach to conservatives reflects an effort to solidify his base, Bush's pitch to Hispanics reflects a bow to the new reality of ethnic voting: While blacks are still the largest bloc of minority voters, Hispanics - whose population in the US, now 35 million, has more than doubled in the past decade - will in time overtake them. Already, Bush made inroads with the Hispanic community in 2000, winning 35 percent of its votes. In 1996, Dole won only 21 percent.

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