{"article":{"id":104815,"heading":"Conservative Group Begins Low-Budget Ad to Defend Bush","author":"Howard Kurtz","created":"2004-03-12 19:06:41","modified":"2004-03-13 03:47:22","last_modified":"Sat, 13 Mar 2004 10:47:22","article":"

Washington Post, March 11, 2004

While liberal advocacy groups are spending millions of dollars on television ads attacking President Bush, David N. Bossie has launched a far more modest venture in the president's defense. Bossie's group, Citizens United, began running a 30-second spot this week making fun of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

But while the Media Fund, a group led by Clinton White House aide Harold Ickes, is spending $5 million on its initial anti-Bush ads criticizing \"corporate greed,\" Bossie's budget is a little more than $100,000. \"We're a conservative group with a lot of small donors around the country,\" Bossie said. \"We don't have big pockets.\"

The ad, running in at least 10 states, takes aim at Kerry's wealth: \"Hairstyle by Cristophe: $75. Designer shirts: $250. Forty-two-foot luxury yacht: $1 million. Four lavish mansions and beachfront estate: over $35 million. Another rich, liberal elitist from Massachusetts who claims he's a man of the people: priceless.\"

Said Bossie: \"We decided to use humor as opposed to the hate-filled speech and vitriol used by left-wing organizations against George Bush.\"

Why is Bossie advertising when the Bush camp is beginning to tap a $100 million war chest? \"The president's campaign is not going to be able to answer every single attack that is false or misleading or just plain nasty,\" he said. \"I plan on being on offense in defining who John Kerry is to the American people.\"

Bossie stirred controversy when he investigated President Bill Clinton as a staff member for the Senate Whitewater Committee and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.). Bossie resigned in 1998 amid a controversy over the selective editing of transcripts of former associate attorney general Webster L. Hubbell's prison conversations.

Citizens United's board chairman is Floyd G. Brown, executive director of the Young America's Foundation and perhaps best known for making the Willie Horton ads against Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988.

The Club for Growth, a free-market group that ran ads against Howard Dean, says it has raised nearly $1 million for anti-Kerry ads that will begin in the next few weeks.

\"We like to play the role of attack dog,\" said the group's president, Steve Moore. \"One thing we can do that Bush can't do is be politically incorrect.\" His first ad, he said, will laud the president's response to the 2001 terrorist attacks and \"probably bring howls of protest from the left.\"\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A47990-2004Mar10.html","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"Citizens United and the Club for Growth "play the role of attack dog" by funding TV ads for the Bush campaign outside of the $100 million plus relection-war chest -- branding Kerry as "another rich, liberal elitist from Massachusetts"","numcomment":5,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2004\/03\/104815.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":104823,"heading":"Bush is a rich man with an oil fortune he never earned","article":"Funny how that story really doesn't highlight the hypocrisy of an ad that attacks a rich man on behalf of a rich man.\r\n\r\nI don't particularly like Kerry's politics, but, when John Kerry was in his late 20s, he was ten times the (hu)man that GW Bush ever was. GW lacks character.\r\n\r\nOil money got GW into power, and oil money is controlling the foreign policy.\r\n\r\nThe Kerry fortune is in the hundreds of millions, but the Bush fortune is in the billions. Kerry would influence things like who gets the pickles-and-ketchup contracts in Iraq, not whether we invade a nation for strategic oil resources.","author":"johnk","parent_id":104815,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-03-12 19:36:12","modified":"2004-03-12 19:36:12","fileurl":""},{"id":104865,"heading":"do your homework","article":"Kerry's fortune is at least 20 times more than Bush's.\r\n\r\nIf elected Kerry would be the 2nd richest president in US history. Adjusted for inflation of course.","author":"david","parent_id":104815,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-03-13 01:21:31","modified":"2004-03-13 01:21:31","fileurl":""},{"id":104866,"heading":"wealth as pathology","article":"it doesn't matter if these indivuals losts half of their wealth.\r\nIt wouldn't affect them physically. That's just how wealthy they are.","author":"Roggered Goodly","parent_id":104815,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-03-13 01:28:47","modified":"2004-03-13 01:28:47","fileurl":""},{"id":104897,"heading":"If they're wealthy then they can't be bought","article":"I don't think wealth has any bearing on a candidates fitness for the job.","author":"Barney","parent_id":104815,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-03-13 03:30:15","modified":"2004-03-13 03:30:15","fileurl":""},{"id":104898,"heading":"lauds of laughter","article":"lauds of laughter from the right and left will be the response to any ad that insinuates Bush reacted properly to 911.\n\nThe organization you speak of will spend a lot more than I will, and my articles will be more effective than theirs at influencing voters.\n\n","author":"Albert Kada","parent_id":104815,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-03-13 03:47:22","modified":"2004-03-13 03:47:22","fileurl":""}]}