Jerry Brown’s ‘Infomercial’ Airs in N.H. : Democrats: His 30-minute video runs on purchased cable TV time. Clinton, Harkin also field new image-oriented ads.

Former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. has joined the television battle in New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential campaign with a 30-minute video--known as an “infomercial”--that will run mostly on cable channels until the state’s Feb. 18 primary.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton also has begun airing a biographical ad that offers voters more information about his personal background, while Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin has launched a 60-second spot stressing his claim that the other Democrats in the race are too much like Republicans.

Brown’s 30-minute video is an appeal to voters who are fed up with government and politics in general. The video, narrated by actress Sally Kellerman, contains excerpts from speeches and television interviews Brown has given, interlaced with dozens of interviews with citizens who are worried about the future or are alienated by the system.

The video originally was produced to raise campaign funds for Brown and was intended to air nationally on cable stations. But Sidney Galanty, the California media consultant who produced the video, said the campaign decided to air it in New Hampshire after Brown refused to run 30-second ads, arguing that he could say nothing substantive in that time.

Buying conventional advertising time also is more expensive than program time. The Brown campaign, which is mostly running the video in the late evening on cable stations, will spend about $50,000 to air it in New Hampshire, roughly a third of the price other campaigns are spending on one week’s worth of advertising.

The Clinton ad is the first biographical spot he has run in New Hampshire, as well the first his campaign has aired since a supermarket tabloid published allegations by an Arkansas woman that she and Clinton had been involved in a 12-year affair. Clinton has strongly denied the allegations.

Over black-and-white photographs of Clinton as a boy, the ad says: “This is the real story of Bill Clinton. He worked his way through Georgetown and Yale Law School, became a Rhodes scholar and then set out to make a difference for others.”

Later, over images of Clinton as governor, it says: “In one of the poorest states in our country, and against all odds, he made progress. . . . It isn’t a miracle. It’s just progress. And a bit of hope.”

The phrasing seems designed to distance Clinton from the “Massachusetts miracle” claim that was central to the campaign of the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis. The claim came back to haunt Dukakis when his state’s economy soured.

At the finish of the Clinton ad, the camera switches to a picture of him and his wife, Hillary, hugging after one of his speeches.

Clinton also is airing a slightly altered 30-second version of the ad.

Harkin, in his new ad, confronts worries among some Democrats that he might not be electable by noting that he has a record of beating Republicans in GOP strongholds. Before winning his Senate seat, his first House victory was in one of Iowa’s historically Republican districts.

“I didn’t do it by trimming my sails. I didn’t do it by becoming more like Republicans. I did it by being strong for what I believe,” Harkin says in the ad, talking to a group of laid-off mill workers.

“Deep inside I believe that if you try to be all things to all people, you’re nothing to anyone,” he says.