2 Democrats’ Battle of TV Ads Under Way

Michael S. Dukakis’ commercial shows a drug deal going down, recorded surreptitiously by a police surveillance camera. Dukakis is going to get tough on crime.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s commercial shows pictures of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy, while a celebrity impersonator quotes them in a vague imitation of their voices. Jackson is part of a great tradition of Democrats.

Those are two of the new ads the presidential candidates will broadcast in California before next Tuesday’s election. Republican George Bush, now close to the federal limit he can spend before the convention in August, is not running ads here.

Dukakis’ and Jackson’s ads began Wednesday night. Each campaign plans three spots in English and Jackson plans five more in Spanish--all to be run in surprisingly limited numbers.

Jackson will likely outspend Dukakis here, as he has in every state since New York’s primary on April 19.

Will Spend $700,000

Jackson’s campaign manager, Gerald F. Austin, said the campaign will spend about $700,000, including $60,000 for Spanish TV and radio and $150,000 for a 30-minute live broadcast Monday night.

The remaining $500,000 will go for three spots in English, to be run in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Salinas, Sacramento, Santa Barbara and on cable across the state.

Jackson’s English-language spots, created especially for California, include two that emphasize issues, and one that quotes three great Democratic presidents of the past, listing the presidential characteristics that Jackson presumably embodies.

In one ad, actress Eileen Brennan says: “We need a President who will make sure that women receive prenatal care, and that children have Headstart and day care. We need a President who will rid our neighborhoods of drugs and gangs, who will make equal pay for equal work the cornerstone of his Administration.”

Dukakis’ spending is even more modest. His campaign disclosed on Wednesday that it was spending $50,000 to $60,000 a day starting Wednesday night for ads mostly in Los Angeles and more modestly in San Francisco, although it could increase its spending later.

‘Got Dope From the Kid’

The one Dukakis ad created for California begins with police surveillance footage. “You got the dope from the kid,” someone says on the tape. “We got a deal going down right now,” another voice says.

The announcer intones: “One drug-driven addict will do a thousand crimes a year. But someone has been watching them, tracking career criminals by computer. His state achieved the second largest drop in crime in America. Federal agents called his anti-drug program a model for the nation. He brought kids and parents together to cut drug use in schools. He did it with hard work, integrity, leadership. We could use some of that in the White House.”