WASHINGTON — Escalating the campaign warfare over the Vietnam era, a new group founded by a veteran Texas Democratic operative will announce today a television ad campaign reprising charges that President Bush failed to perform his service in the Texas Air National Guard while on temporary assignment in Alabama.
The ad, funded by Texans for Truth, features Robert Mintz, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Alabama Air National Guard, who said he never saw Bush while serving in the same unit in 1972.
"It would be impossible to be unseen in a unit of that size," Mintz charged in the ad, which the Texans for Truth group posted on its website Tuesday.
One source familiar with the group's plan said it raised more than $100,000 on Tuesday to air the ad after sending an e-mail solicitation to members of MoveOn.org, a liberal online advocacy group that has been among Bush's staunchest opponents, and DriveDemocracy.org, a spin-off group in Texas.
"The money came in really fast," said the source, who asked not to be identified.
The new ad drive appears in the wake of the advertising assaults on Democratic nominee John F. Kerry from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a conservative group with strong Republican ties. The group has accused the Democratic nominee of misrepresenting his actions in Vietnam and betraying fellow servicemen by pursuing antiwar activities after leaving the Navy.
The source familiar with Texans for Truth's plans said it was considering running the ad in some of the same markets where the Swift boat group aired, nearly all of them in swing states.
But the source added that the group might also seek to run the ad in states that have suffered disproportionately high levels of casualties in the Iraq war. The group will announce its ad buy at a news conference this morning.
The new anti-Bush ad comes as Kerry allies have escalated their criticism of Bush's service record -- and as both campaigns await a piece from CBS' "60 Minutes" tonight examining Bush's National Guard record.
Texans for Truth was founded last month by Glenn Smith, a longtime Texas Democratic operative who ran gubernatorial campaigns for Ann Richards in 1990 and Tony Sanchez in 2002.
Texans for Truth is a 527 organization, so named for the federal tax code that created it, and is associated with DriveDemocracy.org, a Texas group directed by Smith.
