Bush Camp Scales Back Advertising
WASHINGTON — Despite its unprecedented fundraising success, President Bush's reelection team is scaling back its massive level of television advertising, according to senior Republicans familiar with the campaign's planning.
In the next few weeks, viewers in the 18 states where the ads have aired since early March will see about 30% fewer a week, one ranking GOP strategist said.
Republicans say that the ad reduction was planned all along and that the commercials succeeded in planting doubts about presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry. And they say that although Bush's overall advertising budget will shrink, more of the ads that air will criticize Kerry.
In the nation's larger markets, the Bush campaign so far has divided its spending almost in half between ads touting his record and commercials criticizing Kerry, according to tracking conducted for The Times by TNSMI/Campaign Media Analysis Group.
Many Democrats are relieved that the race remains so competitive after a Bush ad barrage that appears to have totaled at least $40 million.
Pointing to recent polls that generally show Kerry at least even with the president, these Democrats say the Massachusetts senator has taken what could be the Bush campaign's hardest punch and is still standing.
The reelection team spent so much so soon "with the intent of putting this thing away early, and it didn't happen," said Erik Smith, executive director of the Media Fund, a group formed by leading Democrats that is running ads in support of Kerry.
Independent analysts agreed with that assessment.
Anthony Corrado, an expert on campaign finance at Colby College in Maine, said that since March 4 -- just after Kerry in effect wrapped up his party's nomination -- Bush has bought about as much television advertising as past presidential candidates purchased for the entire general election campaign.
"And frankly," Corrado said, the president's campaign "didn't move the [poll] numbers that much."
He added: "The Bush campaign came out heavy, both in terms of volume and with some of their strongest attacks, and they didn't get a knockout."
A key factor blunting the ads' impact, analysts said, was the escalation of violence in Iraq and questions that have surfaced about the administration's antiterrorism efforts before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"Bush has probably scored some points
