WASHINGTON — President Bush began his television advertising campaign this year as an heir to Ronald Reagan, with images of flag-raising patriotism that harked back to the 40th president's "Morning in America" commercials of 20 years ago.
But Bush quickly shifted tactics in response to political challenges Reagan never faced. He reduced his positive TV spots to nearly a whisper and cranked up the volume on a series of slashing attacks on his Democratic challenger.
In essence, he labeled Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts an anti-Reagan, accusing him of a vision that amounted to "Twilight in America."
New data on the TV ad wars, compiled for The Times and covering the three months of advertising by Bush, Kerry and a coalition of liberal groups, illustrate the unusual intensity of the president's assault. The information also shows the extent of Kerry's effort to neutralize those attacks with a massive barrage of his own, mostly upbeat TV messages.
The Bush and Kerry TV ads are continuing most of this week even as other campaign activities stop while the nation memorializes Reagan after his death Saturday. Both sides plan to suspend their advertising on Friday, a national day of mourning for Reagan.
The former president's legacy remains a matter of intense dispute between liberals and conservatives. But retrospectives are reminding many voters of his masterly use of television to project an infectious optimism.
To varying degrees, both Bush and Kerry are vying this year to position themselves as messengers of hope in a world shaken by terrorism. But analysts say Bush's TV messages have been, to some extent, hemmed in by events: the ongoing bloodshed in Iraq, a somewhat bumpy economic record, Kerry's easy dominance in the usually fractious Democratic primaries.
Even Bush's early positive ads, while echoing some of the themes of Reagan's, also showed footage of firefighters with a fallen comrade at ground zero in Manhattan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes. In short, 2004 is not 1984.
"It's hard to see how Bush would re-create Reagan in '84 because he doesn't have in place most of the conditions to do that kind of campaign," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Instead, Jamieson compares Bush's TV spots to those run by his father's presidential campaigns -- hard-hitting, controversial and, in some cases, misleading.
