Daschle Wants Bush Ad Pulled

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle is demanding that Republicans stop showing their first television ad of the 2004 presidential race, which he calls “repulsive and outrageous.”

The 30-second ad, which aired in Iowa over the weekend, features clips of President Bush during his State of the Union address in January. It portrays Bush as a fighter of terrorism and says his opponents “are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists.”

“It’s wrong. It’s erroneous, and I think that they ought to pull the ad,” Daschle told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

“We all want to defeat terrorism,” the South Dakota senator said. But “to chastise and to question the patriotism of those who are in opposition to some of the president’s plans I think is wrong.”

The Republican National Committee has no plans to honor Daschle’s wishes.

“We have no doubt that Sen. Daschle and others in his party who oppose the president’s policy of preemptive self-defense believe that their national security approach is in the best interests of the country,” said Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican group. “But we also have no doubt that they are wrong about that, and we will continue to highlight this critical policy difference as well as others.”

The ad will air through Tuesday in Iowa, and then may run again in New Hampshire during the next Democratic debate in December, Iverson said. She added that the party planned to run ads in conjunction with the Democratic debates, but that the decision hadn’t been made whether to simply run the current ad or new ones supporting the president.