Kerry Launching National TV Splash

Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry is ramping up his television advertising this month with a $25-million purchase of air time that targets key states across the country, competes with Republicans on cable TV and opens new fronts in Louisiana and Colorado, according to a party source familiar with the buy.

The Kerry campaign scheduled a news conference this morning to discuss the ad initiative. For weeks, many Democrats have anxiously waited for the Massachusetts senator to launch new commercials that will introduce himself and his agenda to many voters.

Two days after Kerry became the presumptive Democratic nominee on March 2, President Bush began a blizzard of ads to promote himself and attack his opponent.

Kerry responded with modest purchase of air time for commercials defending himself, poking at the president and touting his agenda. But this month’s advertising initiative appears to be the senator’s largest TV splash.

The Kerry campaign declined to discuss the ads Sunday. But a Democratic source familiar with the purchase confirmed its size and scope, including the move to broadcast in Louisiana and Colorado. Airing ads there would bring to 19 the number of states Kerry has targeted.

So far, Bush has not broadcast on local stations in those two states. But the incumbent has matched Kerry elsewhere and has also run his ads on national cable channels such as CNN, Fox, MSNBC and an array of other outlets.

Associated Press reported Sunday that Kerry’s new ads would also appear on national cable TV, another first for the senator.

Bush has spent, by some estimates, more than $60 million on TV and radio ads since early March. Kerry has spent less than a third of that total. But he has been helped by millions of dollars in TV ad spending by liberal interest groups opposed to Bush, including the Media Fund and MoveOn.org.

The move into Louisiana and Colorado reflects an increasing belief by Democratic strategists that those two states are winnable.

Bush took both in 2000, but President Clinton carried Louisiana and narrowly lost Colorado in 1996. Among the other 17 states that both sides have targeted are Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona -- but not Democratic-leaning California.

Kerry’s new ads are meant to erase any impression Bush has created among swing voters that the Massachusetts senator is soft on defense and too quick to raise taxes. Those lines of attack have been Bush’s main TV ad themes in recent weeks.

Though Bush has been on the attack, most of Kerry’s ads have not mentioned the president. The senator is funding the ad initiative with money raised during a fundraising binge that has drawn $80 million this year.