Bush Ad Attacking Kerry Leaks Out

[joefree1]

Bush Ad Attacking Kerry Leaks Out
Positive Spot Is Overshadowed

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 14, 2004; Page A07

President Bush's campaign yesterday rolled out an upbeat, soft-focus ad using the Olympics as a backdrop. But, within hours, the focus shifted to an attack ad, assailing John F. Kerry's record on intelligence, that was supposed to remain under wraps until Monday.

The negative ad leaked out after it was mistakenly played on the Fox News Channel, giving Kerry strategists an opportunity to change the debate and challenge the president's charges three days before the spot receives widespread airing.

Noting the Democratic nominee's promise to reform the intelligence system, a narrator says: "Oh, really? As a member of the intelligence committee, Senator Kerry was absent for 76 percent of the committee's hearings. In the year after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Kerry was absent for every single one.

"That same year," the ad says, "he proposed slashing America's intelligence budget by $6 billion. There's what Kerry says, and then there's what Kerry does."
More ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63804-2004Aug13.html

on edit: Try going throught Google News link to this story if you don't want to register with WP to see the article.
http://news.google.com/


Download the free bumper art here:
http://ediablo.com/eDiabloGallery.html



Images of the Bush Protest in Santa Monica, August 12, 2004

[xray s]

1. Kerry already has a response posted

nice work

http://blog.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/archives/002455.html#more

[Syrinx]

8. if that is their idea of rapid response...

They need to get Carville onboard stat!

[xray s]

10. too wordy or too slow?

[Syrinx]

13. too wordy, I guess

On second thought, maybe that's cool for the website, but they've got to get better at putting soundbites (or soundbytes?) out quickly. We live in a time with ADD, unfortunately.

[Occulus]

26. That's the problem.

Nicely said.

Yes, it's much too wordy. It has to be if Kerry is going to fight back with facts, because the Bush* team has really done something genius here: take a complicated subject with many facts, and boil it down into ten or twenty words that while grossly understating or misstating the truth tend to stay in people's minds.

I don't know- could the Kerry team perhaps play the same game, and sling a bigger handful each time? (Since we were talking about intelligence funding, could Kerry not have mention how the * admin undermined international intel by leaking Plame's name?)

If the Kerry team wants to hit back hard, they need to use the same set of concepts, one of which is the use of "key" words that stay with people, and another which is the sound bite. Add the two together, and you have a powerful tool indeed.

I think it's time we learned how to use it.

[secdiego]

29. There's probably some great rebuttal info in there

but I'm gonna need a good lawyer to figure out exactly what they're saying.

[Scairp]

34. I agree

They need to keep it short and precise. If they are going to get swing voters then they need the Reader's Digest version of this rapid response to explain why the ad is wrong. Not easy to decipher how exactly they are rebutting this ad.

[joefree1]

14. Nice work indeed xray s

More rapid response like yours will keep the rethuglicans reeling. :toast:

[NMDemDist2]

22. is that your dog in Gallery II?

i have a border, a sheltie and an aussie

[joefree1]

32. Yeap, that's Zoomer

He's a proud member of Dogs for Democracy.


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dogsfordemocracy/?yguid=50262504

If you look through some of the protest galleries you'll see many images where he march along with us. He loves going to the protest and will bark at rethugs like crazy.
Joe

[jab105]

15. Ummm...and who will see that rebuttal?

Yes, political junkies who REALLY care about the issue...BUT NOT everyday Joe Blow...

Posting on a web blog is NOT good enough...

And Kerry better realize it quicklY!

[xray s]

20. true

but I think the campaign will learn this quickly and respond better. I was thinking how amazing it is that the campaign can tie into supporters all around the country via the net and monitor what Bush is up to everywhere...they have also been getting a lot of advise to sharpen up their responses.

Kerry has proved to be a pretty savvy campaigner so far. It doesn't hurt to keep the warnings up, though.

[Bandit]

36. Actually I saw a blurb yesterday that said Kerry's site was rated number

216 of most popular sites on the Web. Bush* site didn't even register. One of the two hundred most popular sites on the INTERNET. That is impressive. That means they are get hits in the hundreds of thousands a day. Competing with Porn sites. Every person that reads this will tell another and that person will tell another friend.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

37. Bush's site should be considered a porn site. eom

[Occulus]

25. BIG problem with his response right off the bat

All of the dates for the first response were from this year. How long has Kerry served on the Intel Cmte.?

[Syrinx]

2. why did Fox have it pre-release???

Oh, never mind.

[onehandle]

3. How chummy are the Faux News studios with the Ad makers?

Pretty chummy, if you ask me.

[Cha]

4. Leaked out? Can't they keep secrets?

[autorank]

5. El Diablo, you rock

I got hit your site a while ago. It is outstanding!!! Great art!!!

[joefree1]

11. Thanks, hope you're stealing my stuff

Have you downloaded any of the free art? Great for employee lunch rooms and school bulletin boards.

[kodi]

6. a day before 911 bush proposed to cut fbi counter-terrorist budget $65M

use what michael moore and a host of others dug up

[iowa_democrat]

7. be careful

Just watched "Bush's Brain" Leaks from Karl Rove have a way of biting you. Especially to Fox....this seems .... i don't know, contrived.

steve

[NEDem]

16. I agree, don't be fooled

I am of the impression that during this campaign NOTHING is going to happen that isn't SUPPOSED to happen.

I'll be very happy if this was a screw up, but I'm just a little leary of gifts from the enemy.

[Stark Raving Sane]

19. What kind of leary

Denis or Timothy?

[NEDem]

23. Always been partial to Timothy.

[xxqqqzme]

18. who was it that said

there R no mistakes in politics?

[Jackpine Radical]

38. FDR: "There are no accidents in politics" (iirc)

[Democat]

9. Fox anchors get the ads in advance to practive their talking points?

Fox is part of the Republican party.

[DrZhivago]

12. ^thats it right there

by the time the full media blitz hits they have their act polished

[joefree1]

17. f**king A Bubba

Faux News is a part of the ultra right's march to fascism.

[xxqqqzme]

21. just

hit your site - We have been @ all the protests U have pictured. I have pictures of some of the same creative props - the giant squatter head, the faceless man w/ blood on his suit - who I first saw @ an LA march in January,'03.

Love your art!

[joefree1]

33. thanks, hope you'll steal some of the art

Perhaps we'll meet up at the next one. I always try to post an alert of a coming protest in the Activism and the California forums. As an artist I really enjoy the street theater aspect of these events.

In case you didn't know it. That's me and my wife with the Bush puppet.

[WindRavenX]

24. Well that positive pledge didn't last long

Bush and Rove are getting desperate. These ads will hurt W more than aid him.

[Mike Niendorff]

27. They need to shorten it and sharpen it.

That "cannot pretend to have the facts" line is weak, in particular.

What they should be saying sounds more like this:

-----

"Once again, George W. Bush is cooking his numbers. His political campaign claims that John Kerry missed 76% of important committee meetings, and 100% during the last year.

"These claims are outrageous and they are lies. And here's how the Bush campaign cooked them up : (insert details here).

"So, in closing, just let us say this : George W. Bush, consider yourself fact-checked."

-----

Gotta make it blunt, easy-to-follow and in-your-face. That's how you hit back effectively against slime like this.


MDN

[Democat]

28. At least they use the term "Fuzzy Math" - that's always a good one!

Take Bush down with his own stupidity. :)

[WhereIsMyFreedom]

30. I agree

Your version is much better than theirs. I also noticed that they didn't say what the truth is. Probably because they don't know the truth or it still isn't that favorable to Kerry.

[Tight_rope]

31. "he proposed slashing America's intelligence budget by $6 billion"

Yeah because he thought it was stupid to keep spend money on the useless Terra Alerts which are "ALWAYS" a "FALSE ALERM".

[Bullshot]

35. The radio ads Bush is currently running in Ohio are more of the same.

After you hear Dubya state that he approved this message, they begin with FD Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and Reagan having ambitious agendas on their first 100 days of office.

In some stretch of the imagination, they make it sound like Dubya did, too. They tout his education program (unfunded), equipment for our soldiers (grossly underfunded), enactment of the Patriot Act (you be the judge), tax cuts (33% of which benefit the richest 1%) and other stuff which hardly happened in his first 100 days in office (maybe if you subtract all of the vacation days he took in his first year, maybe they did get enacted within 100 days).

Then, in typical Bush ad fashion, they tell how Kerry would negate all of these accomplishments and his agenda would cost Americans something like $900 billion in new taxes. And, typically, the ad ends with an anti-Kerry line, like "John Kerry, wrong for America."

Bush can never say anything positive about his presidency or career. It's always a slam-fest on John Kerry. Will the American voters see through this?

These ads, especially this one, has more holes than a piece of plywood in a termite colony.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

39. Not it didn't. This was on Fox.

This was floated so Bush can distance himself from the negativity.
Just like he distanced himself from the 'Mission Accomplished' banner.
Float it early and let the pundits talk about it.
Pretty transparent.

[bushwakker]

40. John Kerry has been thinking about national security,

intelligence and terrorism for 20 years. John Kerry was a member of the Senate Inteligence Committee while AWOL was stumbling around Texas aimless and drunk.