By STEVE BOUSQUET and ANITA KUMAR
Published June 18, 2004
Two more U.S. Senate candidates have launched TV ad campaigns with very different messages as they introduce themselves to voters.
Republican Doug Gallagher and Democrat Peter Deutsch unveiled their ads Thursday in a crowded, 12-candidate race where advertising could play a decisive role in choosing both parties' nominees.
Gallagher, a Coral Gables software executive who has never held public office, is running as an outsider. His ads describe him as an "amazing success at business" and criticize senators as "lawyers and career politicians" who have failed to address the country's problems.
Asked whether he is referring to Republicans who control the Senate, Gallagher replied: "There's been too little fresh thinking." He said Republicans are partly to blame for excessive spending "and we, as a party, have to take responsibility for that."
Another GOP candidate, Mel Martinez, called on Gallagher to "stop attacking" President Bush and the Republicans in Congress who have made significant accomplishments, and he said Gallagher owed Republicans an apology.
"This ad is offensive to Republicans," Martinez spokeswoman Jennifer Coxe said.
Gallagher's ads use Sorcerer's Apprentice from the score of Disney's Fantasia to show "senators," played by actors, walking in single file into a puddle of water. "They talk the same, they walk the same, they are the same," the narrator says.
The 30- and 60-second ads were produced by Fred Davis, a Los Angeles consultant who has used offbeat images in other campaigns.
The point, Gallagher said, is for the ads to stick out, with voters being bombarded with other political ads.
Gallagher is spending $1.3-million on a three-week run of ads that started Wednesday in most markets, including the Tampa Bay area. Similar ads are running on Miami's Spanish-language stations.
His ad buy is much bigger than Deutsch's. Deutsch, of Hollywood, is spending several hundred thousand dollars on ads airing in central and south Florida for two weeks on broadcast and cable television. Average voters in those areas will see each ad 4.5 times in a week, said Mark Penn, a general consultant for the Deutsch campaign.
"This makes the leap from generic campaign jargon to show what one candidate can do," said Roy Teicher, a Deutsch campaign spokesman. "It gives a really revealing glimpse of what a congressman does, how his everyday work reflects everyday people in meaningful and powerful ways."
One ad features testimonials from Don and Claudine Ryce, whose son was abducted, raped and murdered in 1995. They credit Deutsch with helping pass legislation to pay for a training center for officers to respond to cases of missing and exploited children.
"Peter Deutsch was there for us when Jimmy went missing," Claudine Ryce says. "It was like his own child was missing."
The ad will appear in Orlando and West Palm Beach.
The second spot, playing in Panama City, describes Deutsch's work to pass a $4.8-million package to boost Monroe County fishermen following Hurricane Georges in 1998. "He fought for us down here, he'll fight for the whole state," fisherman Tom Coppedge says. Penn said the ads are airing in areas where Deutsch is not well-known but voters are open to hearing about him. "I think in this political season, people want to hear from real people telling stories," he said.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas, a Democrat, aired spots on his background and touting his work in education and the environment beginning in April. House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, a Republican, began his advertising campaign in late May.
