First Bush TV Ad Focuses on Plight of N.H. Residents : Politics: Commercial portrays a concerned President. It is only second time incumbent has aired spot in state.

In an indication of the obstacles it faces, the Bush campaign on Friday unveiled its first television advertisement of the political season, a portrayal of a President concerned about the plight of New Hampshire residents.

The 30-second spot was to start airing today on New England television stations, marking only the second time that a sitting President has seen the need for such assistance in a New Hampshire primary, the first of the election season.

Bush’s Republican challenger, conservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, is seeking to strike a chord with economically troubled New Hampshire residents with a message contending that the President cares little about how they fare.

With its ad, the Bush campaign attempts to counter that impression by portraying the President as an understanding neighbor who can tell voters “just give it to me straight because we’ve known each other a long time.”

Part of the ad was filmed during a Bush visit to the state last week in which he implored voters to be blunt with their complaints, and the result is captured in footage showing a clearly upset woman telling Bush “I have never seen it so bad.”

In opening a campaign with scenes of an incumbent confronted with tales of what has gone wrong, advisers to Bush have set a tone for a reelection effort in which they believe the President must be seen facing up to the nation’s troubles.

“This state has gone through hell,” Bush says in the commercial. But he vows: “I am determined to turn this state around.”

The ad was produced by Bush campaign media consultant Mike Murphy. While factory and crowd scenes were filmed on location, campaign officials said that Bush’s voice-over narration was recorded in a White House studio.

Of previous presidents, only Jimmy Carter in 1980 ran television advertisements in New Hampshire. But Bush aides sought to minimize the significance of the decision, noting that television spots, more than ever, have become an integral part of political campaigns.

Buchanan has begun to air a television commercial of his own, using the forum to criticize Bush for breaking his emphatic 1988 campaign promise never to raise taxes.

Also in New Hampshire, the Democratic presidential campaigns of Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey squared off with dueling 30-second advertisements on health care reform, and Kerrey unveiled a long-promised biographical ad.

The two health care advertisements illustrate a major stylistic difference between Clinton, the early front-runner in the Democratic race, and Kerrey, who many view as Clinton’s most serious rival.

Kerrey’s ad, the second he has aired on the centerpiece issue for his campaign, shows him standing alone in a hospital room talking about the legislation for national health insurance that he has proposed.

“George Bush and the insurance companies are against it, and so are most of the Democrats running for President,” Kerrey says, emphasizing his stance as a lone crusader outside the system.

Clinton has tried to neutralize Kerrey’s use of the health care issue by convincing voters that he also is concerned about it, even though his own proposals are considerably less specific than Kerrey’s. His ad opens with pictures of a family in New Hampshire who lost their insurance and whose 2-year-old boy required open-heart surgery. The spot follows a favored Clinton campaign device--using personal anecdotes of people he has met to illustrate his proposals.

“There’s something wrong with a government that can’t open its heart to help a father care for a young child whose heart is already broken,” Clinton says.

Kerrey’s biographical advertisement, 60 seconds long, emphasizes his past as a Vietnam War hero and repeats the theme that he is a political outsider for whom “politics is a cause--not a career.”