CRESCO, Iowa, Oct. 22 — Howard Dean this week began running two new television advertisements that criticize his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination as ÿWashington politiciansÿ who have failed to deliver prescription drug benefits and were inconsistent on the Iraq war.þþThe commercials are the first of the election campaign's nascent television advertising battle in which a Democratic candidate has criticized the other primary contenders. (President Bush has been fair game for weeks.)þþWhile the spots fall short of singling out Dr. Dean's opponents by name, they are unusually negative for this stage of the campaign, when biographical commercials are the norm. þþOfficials of the Dean campaign said the commercials were devised to address biting criticism from rivals and to emphasize Dr. Dean's status as a Washington outsider. Dr. Dean's opponents said the spots were a sign of growing concern in his campaign that his opponents' attacks from the stump were having an effect with voters.þþThe advertisements will run for a week to 10 days in New Hampshire and Iowa, though they will also be seen in the Boston area and parts of Vermont. The Dean campaign said it paid $300,000 for air time.þþThe spots refer blindly to ÿmy opponents.ÿ But they are clearly aimed most directly at Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Dr. Dean's most serious competitors in Iowa and New Hampshire.þþIn both advertisements Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, delivers the critiques himself, standing in front of an outdoors backdrop of a tree-spotted grassy expanse.þþIn the Iowa spot, first shown on Tuesday, Dr. Dean talks about high prescription drug costs for the elderly. He begins by vaguely addressing criticism of comments he made in 1995 supporting a reduction in the growth rate of Medicare spending, which opponents said put him in line with Congressional Republicans. þþÿInstead of fixing the problem, the best my opponents can do is talk about what was said eight years ago,ÿ Dr. Dean says. ÿFor years the politicians in Washington have talked about health insurance and a prescription drug benefit. And all you got was talk. But in Vermont, we did it.ÿþþDr. Dean was making reference to the fact that about one-third of Vermont's elderly residents had prescription benefits paid for by the state and that nearly every child in the state had health insurance.þþIn the New Hampshire advertisement, first shown on Wednesday, Dr. Dean focuses on the invasion of Iraq: ÿThe best my opponents can do is ask questions today that they should have asked before they supported the war.ÿþþWhile analysts said they did not expect Dr. Dean's spots to set off a significant round of commercial counterattacks, the new advertisements did lead to an intense round of press releases, phone calls and e-mail messages from opponents' campaigns to reporters debating how negative the spots were.þþMr. Kerry's staff quickly e-mailed the advertisements' scripts to reporters with the subject line ÿDean goes negative.ÿþþMr. Gephardt's staff sent out a statement that refrained from using the word ÿnegative,ÿ while praising Mr. Gephardt's record on health care and renewing his critique of Dr. Dean's record in Vermont and past statements about Medicare.þþDr. Dean, campaigning across a lightly populated stretch of northern Iowa, said the advertisements were not ÿnegative,ÿ but simply a rebuttal to attacks his rivals have made in recent weeks in debates, in news releases and on the campaign trail. þþÿI learned a long time ago that when somebody says something that's not true,ÿ he said, after a midday gathering in a New Hampton living room, ÿyou have to respond, and that's what we're doing. They have said all over Iowa, they've left the impression that I'm against Medicare. That's not true.ÿþþBut officials with the campaigns of Mr. Gephardt and Mr. Kerry said Dr. Dean's new advertisements were meant to counteract what they said was the beginning of a shift in his status.þþÿThe only plausible explanation for going up with a negative attack ad is a decline in your own poll numbers,ÿ said Robert Gibbs, a spokesman for Mr. Kerry.þþErik Smith, a spokesman for Mr. Gephardt said, ÿClearly we're doing something right.ÿþþAfter raising $15 million, three times as much as any other Democratic candidate, in the last three months, Dr. Dean's campaign is exploiting its fund-raising advantage by going back on the air now, while his opponents are lying relatively low in terms of political advertising.þþJoe Trippi, Dr. Dean's campaign manager, said this was ultimately a pre-emptive television strike. ÿThat's what we're supposed to do with the money, is get the message out,ÿ he said. ÿWe aren't waiting for them to go negative.ÿþþþþ
Source: NY Times
