Bush TV Ad Sees Madmen Loose in ‘Dangerous World’

The world according to Texas Gov. George W. Bush is “a world of terror, madmen and missiles,” and he is just the person to put a stop to it.

Or so claims a dramatic 30-second television spot that Bush’s Republican presidential campaign is airing in South Carolina, a state full of both veterans and military bases whose primary falls shortly after New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation contest in February.

With Bush’s rival, John McCain--senator from Arizona and Vietnam War hero--gaining speed in New Hampshire, experts say the ad will help Bush shore up his position in the Southern state. Media consultants for Bush, however, said the spot was long planned.

The Bush ad shows familiar scenes of antiaircraft fire over Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War as spooky music thrums in the background. It then switches to footage of a little long-haired girl playing happily amid rusting scraps near padlocked chain-link fences at what looks like a shuttered military base but is actually the abandoned Mueller Airport in Austin, Texas.

“Today we live in a world of terror, madmen and missiles,” Bush says in the ad. “Our military is challenged by aging weapons and low morale. Because a dangerous world still requires a sharpened sword, I will rebuild our military.”

Mark McKinnon of Maverick Media in Austin, who created the $25,000 ad with his staff, said: “What we’re doing is juxtaposing innocence against the horrors of war.”

The creators also said they are flattered by claims from a senior McCain staffer that the new ad is “eerily reminiscent” of the “Daisy” spot, a haunting 1964 television commercial that proved so controversial that it ran for only one day.

The “Daisy” spot, intended by President Johnson to suggest that his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, would risk nuclear war, featured a little girl picking the petals from a daisy while an announcer’s voice counted down “10-9-8” until “zero,” when the screen showed an atomic blast.

“It just was not our intent to create a ‘Daisy’ ad . . . ,” McKinnon said. “I’m flattered anybody would make the comparison, because [the ‘Daisy’ spot] is one of the great spots in American politics.” He also noted that the two ads have different messages, with Bush promising to increase military pay and spending.

Another political ad released on Friday features actor Paul Newman and retired Vice Adm. Jack Shanahan and argues that increased military spending is the wrong agenda for presidential candidates. In the 30-second spot produced by a group called Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, Newman and Shanahan say the U.S. could save $15 billion a year by reducing the nation’s arsenal and still have enough weapons “to destroy every city on the planet only four times over.”

The ad concludes: “Invest in kids, not Pentagon waste. . . . Let’s get the candidates and politicians to talk about the real issues.”

The Manhattan-based group, which seeks to shift military spending to education, health care and other social programs, says its members include 500 business executives and former military officials.

McKinnon said the Bush spot was planned in June and shot in September and had nothing to do with the governor’s speech on foreign policy Friday in Simi Valley, with his flubbing a recent televised pop quiz about world leaders or with McCain’s rise in New Hampshire polls.