Nation & World News Bush, Kerry hit below belt early in race to White House The early use of attack ads may be a result of private groups’ increased spending By Mark Silva The Orlando Sentinel (KRT) American voters face the most bruising and costly campaign for the White House ever, with a brutal eight-month contest between Presi dent Bush and Democrat John Kerry already bristling with character as saults and hard-hitting television ad vertising. With a battery of dueling TV ads now hitting voters in Florida and other critical battlegrounds — and with attacks certain to escalate — both sides risk alienating cynical voters just as the campaigns begin. It's possible that "the public is go ing to get burned out over this," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Center for Public Policy at the University of Pennsyl vania. Yet, she said, the issues that Bush and Kerry are battling about — „ terrorism, taxes, jobs and health care — are critical enough to keep voters engaged. "We're seeing a new model of campaigning," Jamieson said. "The assumption has always been that you don't engage seriously at the general-election level until at least summer. You are now down to the specific case against each side at a very early time." The expectation of a close, hard fought election in November is driv ing this extraordinarily early ex change, fueled by a trio of dynamics producing a perfect political storm: • The unusually early naming of a Democratic nominee who is chal lenging, even surpassing, the incum bent in opinion polling. • Candidates unconstrained in what they can spend in record-set ting spring and summer campaigns. • A profusion of outside interest groups fueling ad wars that are unre strained in spending and free to use venomous rhetoric that the candi dates themselves dare not utter. Bush, ridiculing his rival as a waffler, on Friday rolled out an attack TV ad targeting Kerry as a tax-and-spender who is weak on terrorism. Kerry, deriding the president as "reckless" on the world stage, has re sponded with his own ads but also is drawing reinforcement from allies — such as the anti-Bush groups MoveOn.org and The Media Fund — that are spending millions of dol lars on attack ads against the presi dent. And this is only the start. "If we take President Bush's lead, it's going to ratchet up pretty quick ly," said Harold Ickes, former aide to : President Clinton and founder of The Media Fund. Bush "has ratch eted it up pretty fast, given that this is an eight-month election ... We will conduct ourselves accordingly." The president, gauging the severi ty of the contest, has come out of the Rose Garden. He is already cam paigning hard, spending time each week in states he most hopes to win. And, Bush is airing TV ads warning of Kerry's "plan to pay for new gov ernment spending" and "raise taxes by at least $900 billion." Kerry proposes to rescind the tax cuts that Bush won for people with incomes over $200,000 a year. With the money, he aims to provide insur ance for most Americans lacking health care. His campaign calls Bush's ads "weapons of deception," although an Emory University analysis projected that Kerry's health plan could cost $895 billion during 10 years. On the stump, Bush accuses Kerry, a fourth-term senator from Massachu setts, of spending so much time in Washington that "he's taken both sides on just about every issue.... My opponent clearly has strong beliefs — they just don't last very long." Kerry accuses Bush of spearhead ing a reckless foreign policy and heartless domestic agenda. "Mr. President," Kerry declared in Florida last week, "bad, rushed decisions kill. ... Not giving American citizens health care kills, too." This is high-octane talk for March. "It's a danger for both of them to go so negative, because it really turns off voters," said Merle Black, profes sor of politics and government at Emory University. "There is some thing to the dignity of the office here, especially for Kerry — he needs to ratchet it down a little bit, because we are talking about the presidency." Yet Bush and Kerry are raising the most important issue in a presiden tial election. "It goes straight to character," Jamieson said. "If you can under mine trustworthiness, you can un dermine a candidacy. In the ex change, Bush says, 'I'm steady, and he's indecisive.' Kerry comes back and says, There is a difference be tween indecision and stubbornness — your decisiveness is dangerous.'" This is also financially costly cross fire. But Bush, who has raised more than $145 million for his campaign, already has surpassed a record that he set in 2000. And Kerry, imploring Democrats to unite after an excep tionally swift primary campaign, hopes to raise $80 million. Plus, Bush and Kerry are not alone in shoveling money into attack ads. Thanks to reforms of campaign fi nancing, which strictly limit the "soft money" that donors contribute to political parties or to candidates, unregulated independent groups are flourishing and spending millions of dollars in ads this year. Outside groups are freer to attack — such as one free-wheeler that slammed Democrat Howard Dean in Iowa's caucuses this winter: "Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-spending, latte-drink ing, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading ... Holly wood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs." It was a Republican-leaning group that aired the most notorious cam paign ads of modern times, an at tack on the 1988 Democratic nomi nee, Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts. That ad featured Willie Horton, a convicted murder er who left a Massachusetts prison on a weekend furlough in 1987 and kidnapped a couple, raping the woman. "Weekend prison passes — Dukakis on crime," concluded one ad sponsored by Americans for Bush, backed by the National Secu rity Political Action Committee. The ads helped President Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, over whelmingly defeat Dukakis. This president, like his father, will benefit from the support of inde pendent committees attacking the Democrat. Citizens United, headed by a former Republican congression al aide, has aired a MasterCard ad parody picturing Kerry alongside Sen. Edward M. Kennedy: "Another rich, liberal elitist from Massachu setts who claims he's a man of the people. Priceless." But this time, Democrats have amassed an army of their own. Jim Jordan, Kerry's first campaign manager before an overhaul last fall, has opened a consulting firm repre senting three of the Democratic committees: The Media Fund, ACT and America Votes. Their national spokeswoman, Sarah Leonard, came from Dean's campaign. The parties have organized their own computerized "opposition-re search" shops spouting fountains of fodder for media covering the cam paigns every day. Forty people do such research for the RNC effort. The day Kerry met with Dean last week to start assembling a coalition of their supporters, the RNC Re search Department was ready with "Dean's Greatest Hits" — a list of critical words Dean had for Kerry during their primary campaign. "We're going to keep pounding, let me tell you," Kerry s