Obama steps up anti-McCain message in his TV ads

[August 21, 2008]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- Barack Obama stepped up his hard-edged ad campaign Wednesday, launching two tough commercials against Republican presidential rival John McCain.

One ad, aimed at the most competitive states, criticizes McCain's economic policies as a boon to corporations. The other, meant for Atlanta voters, sought to exploit a fundraising connection between McCain and a political strategist linked to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Both ads are part of a quickly evolving Obama strategy that has featured a flurry of anti-McCain spots in targeted markets across the country. It signals a shift from the biographical spots that had been dominant in the weeks after Obama secured the Democratic nomination in June.

It also puts Obama in the same league as McCain, who has been running stinging ads against Obama, including a buzz-generating spot that compared Obama's celebrity to that of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

McCain's camp continued the theme Wednesday with a radio ad on Obama's spending plans. "Celebrities like to spend their millions," says the ad. "Barack Obama is no different. Only it's your money he wants to spend."

Obama began striking back last week with ads against McCain in selected markets, not throughout the 18 states where he has focused most of his ad buys. The campaign also did not announce these ads as broadly as it has with others, giving them a stealthy feel.

Obama aired about 10,000 spots last week, including 9,000 against McCain, according to Evan Tracey, who tracks political ads as head of TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group.

Still, because Obama is running a positive ad during the Olympics, the widest audience in the country is not seeing the negative ones.

During the same period, McCain aired virtually all anti-Obama ads. Of 13,000 spots, only 302 ads portrayed McCain as a political maverick and did not mention Obama, Tracey said.

Obama's strategy, Tracey said, suggests that his poll numbers show that the "positive bio spots that they've been running the balance of the summer don't appear to be making any significant connection with undecided voters," Tracey said.

Several new national polls show McCain beginning to close the gap with Obama.

The Obama campaign "understands it's important to push back," said Tad Devine, a media strategist and senior adviser to John Kerry's 2004 Democratic presidential campaign.

But while the ads might neutralize McCain's anti-Obama ads, they also could undermine Obama's image as a new style of politician who rejects divisive politics.

The Atlanta ad is among Obama's sharpest yet. It focuses on former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, a GOP strategist and business associate of Abramoff. McCain, who investigated Abramoff's lobbying activities when he was chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, has often cited the inquiry as an example of how he has taken on special interests. Reed was not called to appear before McCain's committee and he was never charged.

Reed and McCain have long kept their political distance. But the ad suggests the committee's decision against calling Reed to testify is linked to Reed's decision to solicit money for a McCain fundraiser in Atlanta earlier this week.

"When the Senate investigated, the senator in charge never even called Reed to testify. And that senator? John McCain," the ad says. "And who's now raising money for McCain's campaign? Ralph Reed."

"Barack Obama's ad is ridiculous," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers. "Because of John McCain, corruption was exposed and people like Jack Abramoff went to jail."

He said Obama has his own links to supporters that need explaining, and specifically named former 1960s radical activist William Ayers.

Obama began placing targeted ads last week. One commercial, airing only in the Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, markets, cited the possible loss of 10,000 jobs at a DHL shipping plant in the state and noted that McCain campaign manger, Rick Davis, helped DHL complete a key corporate merger in 2003.

In other selected markets, including Philadelphia and Green Bay, Wis., Obama has aired an ad that uses a clip of McCain during a January debate, when he said the country has had "a pretty good prosperous time with low unemployment." McCain has since adjusted his view of the economy, saying in one of his own recent ads that the country is "worse off than we were four years ago."

Devine said the Obama campaign's goal is to move swing voters in swing states.

"What the Obama people are doing is they apparently have developed individual targeted strategies for states and media markets within states," Devine said. "They will be speaking very directly to different groups of voters within those battlegrounds."

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On the Net:

McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com/

Obama: http://www.barackobama.com/

[Associated Press; By JIM KUHNHENN]

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