Posted on 10/20/2004 4:06:57 AM PDT by dubie
10/19/2004
Judy Keen and Mark Memmott USA TODAY
The most expensive TV ad buy of the presidential campaign shows President Bush consoling a teenage girl whose mother died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.
The ad, created by the conservative Progress for America Voter Fund, will run until the election on cable stations and in nine key states at a cost of $14.2 million, said the group's president, Brian McCabe. (Related link: Ad analysis)
The ad was inspired by a photo of Bush hugging Ashley Faulkner, who is now 16, while campaigning in Lebanon, Ohio, on May 4. The photo, taken by the girl's father, Lynn Faulkner, was widely circulated on the Internet. As Bush shook hands in the crowd, the Faulkners' neighbor told him that Ashley had lost her mom on 9/11. Bush enfolded Ashley in his arms and offered her comfort.
"In the midst of all those people and all that noise, it was an intimate and personal moment," Lynn Faulkner, a marketing consultant and a Republican, said in an interview. His wife, Wendy Faulkner, an information-systems executive, was in the South Tower on Sept. 11.
The ad features the photo and Ashley and her father talking about Bush. "All he wants to do is make sure I'm safe," Ashley says in the ad. Lynn says in the ad that he saw in Bush "what I want to see in the heart and soul" of a president.
(Excerpt) Read more at progressforamerica.com ...
Even the Militant Mama in the Kerry 9/11 ad was wiping tears away on CNN last night. This is the kind of thing we ought to have been seeing all along.
I saw the ad online yesterday and it is FANTASTIC.... this is a POSITIVE ad, an ad to highlight the inhumanity of what was done on 9-11, and the humanity of President Bush who truly cares about the victims of that awful event and who is seen here comforting a young girl who lost her mother in the World Trade Center that day.
FANTASTIC AND DEEPLY MOVING AD.
IT's touching BUT I'd rather have it be the issues that win an election. For example HOW he is keeping us safe etc. etc..
I watched all the ads and about half of them are real movers. Donate to this group if you can...
I saw this on the news the day it took place..
bttt
People motivated by the facts decided a long time ago.
Whether we like it or not, some people are moved more by things with a strong emotional value.
President Bush looks like a man who belongs in a Carhart jacket not a rich fool who puts one on to get a vote from the regular guys.
John Kerry is the biggest phony I ever laid eyes on.
FGS
The Kerry ad with the victim's wife talking about the 9/11 commision was emotionally flat and struck me like the usual opposition cynical carping.
I have to admit, the photo moves me, and I'm not prone to that kind of emotional crap.
Zero content. Why does Bush think you can have emotion or content, but not both?
Are you sure its a Bush ad? Looks like a 527. I can't run it here at work.
It's a 527, a damn good one I might add.
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Zero content.
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Because, of course, we all know that the character of a president is totally irrelevant to his leaderhsip, and that the heart of a man is never an issue when determining whether he should be a leader over you. That's all just emotional crap, you see.
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