With John Kerry wrapping up the Dem nomination fight this week, the White House hoped to get off the defensive and back into “campaign mode” (as if they ever left) yesterday with the release of three fancy new television ads touting George W. Bush and his leadership.
Instead, the Bush campaign is back on the defense and under intense criticism for the ads’ content. So much for the unmatched genius of Bush’s political aides.
This has to be the worst ad roll out since Calvin Klein unveiled those creepy spots with some weirdo taking provocative pictures of children in his basement in the 90s.
I’ve never been one to believe the notion that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Bush’s new campaign ads are all over the airwaves in paid media (purchased air time) and unpaid media (news coverage). While this may seem like a good thing for the White House — more people will see their ads without them having to spend more money — the coverage so far has been about the ads managing to upset a variety of constituencies within hours of their broadcast.
The talk about the ads isn’t about whether they’re an effective political message, it’s about who finds them the most offensive. Hardly the way to earn political points.
As far as I can tell, the criticisms are focusing on four central problems with the new Bush ads.
* The ads are factually incorrect. Most of the three new commercials don’t include many facts to discount, but one of the spots insists that the economy was “in recession” when Bush took office. This has been a claim the White House has thrown around for years now, and has everyone already knows, it’s completely false.
* The ads are hypocritical. As the DNC blog noted yesterday, Bush’s campaign team has no problem using a flag-draped coffin from 9/11 being used for commercial footage, but Bush’s White House refuses to allow the news media to show coverage of flag-draped coffins from Iraq.
* The ads are insulting. Bush’s ads use images of fire fighters from 9/11, and the fire fighters are livid about it. The 265,000-member International Association of Fire Fighters has described the ads as “absolutely disgraceful and disgusting,” and has called on the campaign to pull the ads from the air. The union was not only offended by the exploitation factor; fire fighters also note that it was Bush who has cut funding for first responders and underfunded federal resources that fire departments have asked for. They also still remember that the White House directed the EPA to announce that the air at Ground Zero — where fire fighters were part of rescue efforts — was safe, even though it wasn’t.
* The ads are offensive. Many of the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 seem more outraged by the the new Bush ads as anyone. “It makes me sick,” said Colleen Kelly, who lost her brother Bill Kelly Jr., in the attacks and leads a victims families group called Peaceful Tomorrows. “Would you ever go to someone’s grave site and use that as an instrument of politics? That truly is what Ground Zero represents to me.”
Rita Lasar, who lost her brother, said, “The idea that President Bush would rally support around his campaign by using our loved ones in a way that is so shameful is hard for me to believe. It’s so hard for us to believe that it’s not obvious to everyone that Ground Zero shouldn’t be used as a backdrop for a political campaign. We are incensed and hurt by what he is doing.”
I suspect this wasn’t the reaction the Bush team was hoping for.