AD WATCH

This Internet advertisement is expected to debut Tuesday on about 20 websites for publications based in Ohio, Florida and Missouri. Slight variations will appear from state to state. A national version is also scheduled to appear on latimes.com and washingtonpost.com.

Text (for the Missouri version): “George Bush promised Missouri security, cheaper healthcare, more job training. But a secret White House memo shows Bush planning deep cuts that will hurt your family. Click here to find out how the Bush cuts will hit Missouri.”

Images: A column flashes in three frames, with the ad’s text in each. The first frame shows Bush pointing his right index finger and speaking. The second and third show the top of a May 19 White House memorandum concerning the fiscal 2006 budget. Browsers who click through are sent to a DNC website headlined: “Secret Memo Exposed: Bush Plans DEEP Cuts After the Election.”

Analysis: This ad, highlighting a partisan debate over federal spending, represents the DNC’s first effort this year to use the Internet for voter persuasion rather than fundraising. The ad relies on a May 27 Washington Post article about the Bush administration planning for fiscal 2006 to contend that the president plans surprise budget cuts if reelected. It is true that the two-page May 19 memo at issue offers “planning guidance” to federal agencies as they prepare spending plans for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, 2005. The Democrats assert the memo spells out potential cuts for various agencies totaling at least $2.3 billion a year. Still, that would amount to less than 1% of nonmilitary discretionary domestic spending -- a sum many conservatives would dispute could be described as a “deep” cut. Among the potential targets, though, are the politically sensitive departments of Education and Veterans Affairs. The White House Office of Management and Budget plays down the memo as routine internal correspondence and insists that no funding decisions -- preliminary or final -- have been made. As a result, Republicans say the DNC website’s state-by-state projections for specific funding cuts are fabrications. Finally, the document was apparently leaked to the Post, but was not stamped “secret” or “classified.”

Compiled by Times staff writer

Nick Anderson

Los Angeles Times