Campaign ads: Who listens?

Mr. Tracey also sees the new campaign finance system - which squeezed the big "soft money" donations away from the parties and into independent groups, and also doubled the limit on "hard money" donations to candidates and parties - as playing a role in the new ad landscape. That, combined with the burning motivation left from the last presidential election's controversial outcome, has created an explosion of donations and spending.

"There are only so many yard signs and bumper stickers you can buy," says Tracey. "After that, it's TV."

Both campaigns are fighting to portray positive reasons to vote for their man, in contrast to the high volume of negative messages that have spewed forth thus far. The Bush campaign spent much of the spring trying to define Kerry - and drive up his negatives - as polls showed that many Americans claimed not to know much about him. From the pro-Kerry side, the 14 independent groups have driven the anti-Bush negativity parade - in part, because they are not allowed, by law, to advocate in favor of anyone; but nothing prevents them from bashing the other guy.

The outside groups are also barred from coordinating at all with the official campaigns, and so when an independent group called Swift Boat Veterans For Truth put out an ad last week claiming that Kerry was lying about his combat experience in Vietnam, Bush ended up avoiding reacting to the substance of the claim altogether, instead decrying the use of soft political money by outside groups.

Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona, a friend of Kerry's and a former Vietnam POW, came to Kerry's defense, as did historian Douglas Brinkley, who wrote a biography of Kerry. If Bush had called for the group to pull its ad, or even commented on its content, he may have been accused of "coordinating" with the group, analysts surmise.

Kerry is in the same position with the actions of the 14 outside groups supporting his candidacy. The risk for both candidates is that viewers don't distinguish between "their" ads and the outside ads, and so they all blend together into one multifaceted message. Some viewers may find an outside message unfair, and that could end up hurting the candidate it's meant to help.

"There is a possibility of a backlash," says John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron in Ohio, one of the toss-up states awash in advertising. "That's true not just because it's negative - the public sees all of this as negative - but because it seems unreasonable."

After the Republican convention, which ends Sept. 2, and Labor Day weekend, the traditional start of the campaign homestretch, there will be a sprint to the finish by both candidates. The financial playing field will be even, at least as far as the campaigns themselves are concerned. Each campaign will have its $75 million in federal funds and two months to use it. Kerry already has his, having accepted his party's nomination in Boston, but he is husbanding his resources so he can go head to head against Bush.

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