Ad denouncing Bush to air on Toledo TV

1/23/2004
BY FRITZ WENZEL
BLADE POLITICAL WRITER

Toledo television viewers are among those in 21 media markets in five important states in the November election to be targeted for an advertisement critical of President Bush s State of the Union speech.

The ad is sponsored by MoveOn.org Voter Fund, a liberal group that has sponsored other ads against Mr. Bush.

The spots will run until Feb. 4 and represent a media buy worth $1.9 million, said Trevor Fitzgibbon, a spokesman for the group.

The ad features an imitator speaking behind actual images of the President addressing Congress, saying: “My Medicare bill has real drug benefits - but not for you; for my contributors at the big drug companies.”

Mr. Fitzgibbon said the group is on the air now because the airwaves are not now cluttered with political ads, allowing their spot to stand out.

Heather Layman, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said they have called on the Democratic presidential candidates to repudiate the MoveOn.org ads.

“None of them have done that so far,” she said.

“Just like the Democratic field of presidential candidates, these Democrats seem to be happy to tell you what they are against but seem to be short on ideas of what they are for,” she said.

The commercial is running in four other Ohio media markets, including Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton. The spot also is on the air in Missouri, West Virginia, Florida, and Nevada.

A conservative Web site, Grassfire.org, has begun its own 30-second television commercial “calling for an immediate stop to MoveOn.org s $10 million campaign to defame and defeat President Bush,” according to a news release from the group. But that ad is not airing in Ohio.