New Players in Ad Wars Join Established Voices

With names that give few clues to their funding or origins, a host of obscure groups are jumping onto the already-crowded television airwaves days before the presidential election in hopes of reaching voters who will decide the seesaw race.

In one of the more riveting commercials, sponsored by a New York group called Operation Truth, a young Army veteran from Santa Ana who lost his right hand and forearm to a grenade in Iraq, details holes in President Bush’s justifications for war.

Sitting on a stool and gazing into the camera, Robert Acosta notes the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the absence of evidence that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was complicit in the Sept. 11 attacks.

“When people ask me where my arm went,” Acosta says, as the camera zooms onto the deformed stub that remains of his limb, “I try to find the words. But they’re not there.”

Operation Truth describes itself as a nonpartisan veterans’ organization that is not backing a candidate in the presidential election. But its 30-second commercial, which aired last week on CNN and Fox News Channel, echoes arguments made frequently by Democratic nominee Sen. John F. Kerry.

One of the group’s founders, Paul Rieckhoff, is an Army reservist and Iraq veteran who delivered the weekly Democratic Party radio address one Saturday in May.

Another group called Move America Forward has aired ads recently on Fox News Channel that dovetail with Bush’s arguments for the war.

In one ad, a woman named Melissa Hioco, wife of an Army reservist posted in Iraq, declares: “Taking on the terrorist threat in Iraq has made the United States safer.”

In another spot, the group refers to Kerry, saying: “Some politicians are trying to undercut our troops’ mission in Iraq to advance their political interests.” That ad shows quotes from Kerry and then a picture of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Like Operation Truth, Move America Forward describes itself as a nonpartisan organization that backs people who serve in the armed forces.

But its leanings appear overtly Republican. Its chairman is a former Republican state assemblyman from California, Howard Kaloogian, and its chief strategist is GOP consultant Sal Russo.

Most of the emerging players in the TV ad wars are destined to be overshadowed in the campaign’s final month. Their spending lags far behind what Bush, Kerry and the two major parties are pouring into the race.

These new independent groups also don’t have the name identification or fundraising ability of well-known groups such as the Media Fund and MoveOn.org on the anti-Bush side, or Progress for America Voter Fund and Swift Vets and POWs for Truth on the anti-Kerry side.

Still, political analysts say some of the groups could make a difference in the neck-and-neck contest.

“In an election like this, you’re going to try almost anything to see if it has any impact at all,” said Derek Willis, who tracks independent political groups for the Center for Public Integrity. “Some of these groups say things that candidates would like to say but would never be able to say.”

Several little-known groups have popped up on the airwaves this month, according to TNSMI/Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks ads for The Times.

Stronger America Now has run ads in Wisconsin that attack ties between Bush and the Saudi royal family. The two spots are recycled Media Fund messages. The group, which a Democratic source said was funded by trial lawyers, also has run ads in Dayton, Ohio, that criticize Bush as a tool of big corporations and defend Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards, a North Carolina senator.

Edwards’ trial lawyer background has come under attack from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Softer Voices, meanwhile, has run an ad in Pittsburgh that promotes Bush’s views on terrorism. The group has no apparent website or paper trail with the federal government and is difficult to trace.

Bring Ohio Back criticized Bush and Republican Gov. Robert A. Taft for Ohio job losses in a curious spot that featured a talking goat. The group, organized under Section 527 of the tax code, is promoted by actor Martin Sheen.

V-Cap, linked to the United Auto Workers, criticized Bush’s domestic policies in a spot seen in Pittsburgh.

Americans United to Preserve Marriage, linked to social conservative Gary Bauer, criticized Kerry’s stance on same-sex marriage in a commercial that ran in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Kerry opposes same-sex marriage, though the group says his Senate voting record shows otherwise.

Other anti-Bush commercials were run this month by Campaign Money Watch, Environmental Action Fund, Mothers Opposing Bush, Running for Change, Real Economy Group and Win Back Respect. The latter two received donations from liberal billionaire George Soros.

One of the activists involved in these efforts acknowledged that they were working on the margins of the electorate. Yet the margins may again prove decisive; four years ago, Bush took Florida by 537 votes, and with it, the presidency.

“We’re a very small piece of a very big puzzle,” said Marc Laitin, director of Running for Change, a small political action committee in Washington that has aired anti-Bush ads in Ohio and western Minnesota. “But Florida in 2000 taught both the progressive left and the conservative right a critical lesson -- that every vote does matter.”

*

Times researcher Robin Cochran contributed to this report.