Posted on 11/19/2005 9:34:53 AM PST by got_moab?
BOSTON -- It has become known as one of the most effective TV presidential campaign commercials ever: President Bush consoling a 9-year-old Ohio girl named Ashley whose mother died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Mr. Bush hugged Ashley at an appearance in Ohio in 2003, holding her close and telling her, "I know that's hard. Are you all right?"
The story of Mr. Bush's hug ran in the Cincinnati Enquirer. In June 2004, a group called Progress For America, a conservative pro-Bush group known as a 527 organization, so named for the part of the federal tax code that covers such groups, decided to make an ad of the president's hug of Ashley.
Yesterday, Patrick Devlin, a University of Rhode Island professor of communication studies and an expert in campaign advertising, told a convention of communication professors in Boston that he has uncovered evidence that shows the Bush campaign and Progress for America worked together to make sure the commercial didn't run until near the end of the campaign -- which, if true, would be a violation of federal campaign laws that prohibit cooperation between presidential campaigns and independent groups.
Mark McKinnon, Mr. Bush's media adviser, and Tom Josefiak, the top lawyer for Mr. Bush's 2004 campaign, disputed Devlin, with McKinnon calling Devlin's charges "inaccurate."
Ashley, her father and her aunt agreed to make the ad. Ashley underscored the power of the hug by saying, "He's the most powerful man in the world and all he wants to do is make sure I'm safe."
Then her father chimed in, saying, "What I saw was what I want to see in the heart and in the soul of the man who sits in the highest elected office in our country."
The spot was put together by Larry McCarthy, who gained fame in the 1988 presidential camapign by creating the famous Willie Horton ad used against Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis.
The Progress for America group spent about $20 million running and promoting the Ashley ad in 11 battleground states; the ad ran 7,000 times in Ohio toward the end of Mr. Bush's campaign against Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.
In the end, Mr. Bush narrowly won Ohio and the presidency. Top Kerry campaign officials say the ad was so effective -- coming as it did near the end of the campaign -- that it may have swung Ohio over to Mr. Bush.
"We lost the election because of September 11 and terrorism," said Tad Devine, a top Kerry strategist, in an interview yesterday. "I think that ad might be why we lost Ohio, and because we lost Ohio, we lost the election."
"With everything that has been happening to Bush, this is really big if it holds up," Devine said. "This could have real consequences."
Another top Kerry strategist, Robert Shrum, was even more emphatic, Devlin said. "When all is said and done, and all this money is spent . . . it was that ad that determined the outome of the race."
Devlin also said yesterday that McKinnon told him in a taped interview after the election that a lawyer McKinnon did not name tipped him to the ad and told him not to use Ashley or her family in a film he was producing for the Bush campaign to use at the Republican National Convention in August.
In the lecture he delivered yesterday, Devlin quoted McKinnon as saying that Ashley was supposed to be part of the convention film. But, McKinnon said, "I got a call from a lawyer who said it might not be a good idea for you to do that . . . I didn't know what was going on, but people were sending a signal and . . . I was encouraged not to use Ashley because that might have complicated what they want to do."
Devlin said McKinnon called him after the interview and asked the URI professor not to use his comments in his written account of the Ashley spot. "He said he would not mind my using the story in a class or public lecture format. He just asked me not to write it."
Yesterday, Devlin delivered his paper and a related lecture at the National Communication Association Convention, held in a Back Bay hotel. After Devlin delivered his remarks, McKinnon, the Bush media adviser, and Josefiak, Mr. Bush's campaign legal counsel, denounced the URI professor.
"Mr. Devlin's observations were inaccurate," McKinnon said in a statement. "There was unequivocally no collusion. I never spoke with anyone from PFA [Progress for America] about any ad ever during the campaign.
"I never knew there was an Ashley ad until I saw it on the air," McKinnon said. "It did occur to me that Ashley's story could be used in a third-party ad in some capacity. But I had no prior knowledge of what that capacity might be and when or if that might happen."
Josefiak said the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign set up various safeguards to ensure that all of the campaign laws barring commnication between 527 groups and the Bush campaign were obeyed.
"We were very [meticulous] about that," Josefiak said. "We were bound and determined not to do anything that would violate the ban on law coordination between the campaign and independent groups. I'm very confident that didn't happen."
Devine's right. This could cost Bush the election!! :-D
Well, du-uh.
I guess this will be one of the articles of impeachment if the Democrats regain control of the House in November 2006. The question will be: "what did the President know and when did he know it?" (about the advice to delay airing this ad).
It's unfair for Republicans to run election campaigns. Only Demo(n)cRATS should be allowed to do so.
This whole Ohio 'fiasco' is a RAT concocted fantasy.
President Bush won Ohio because he was the better candidate, the campaign was brilliant, and a whole lot of volunteers worked our proverbial tails off to make sure Bush people got out to vote, and the RATS didn't vote two or three times each.....
For the record......
The title is misleading. The rats aren't stuck in 2004, they're stuck in the 1960s. Free love, peace, feed the world, protest the war, big business killing the environmetn...yada yada yada. This is why they will never again be allowed to govern.
("With everything that has been happening to Bush, this is really big if it holds up," Devine said)
Translation: For 5 years we've been throwing a lot of sh*t to the wall and still hope some of it sticks.
Just like they were stuck in 2000 during the 2002 election season. It cost them dearly. Voters don’t want to hear about the past.
Tell Kerry that the ad that determined the race was the one of HIM wearing the blue bunny suit. The "image" of Kerry crawling through the woods while deer hunting was good, too.
"Current news" update
Kerry's campaign manager said in a TV interview that he was coordinating efforts with moveon. Time to contact the IRS this kind of coordination is illegal.
That is one heck of a powerful image. First time I've seen it.
An amazing moment.
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