New Democratic ads target Hawai'i
By Derrick DePledge
Advertiser Capitol Bureau
With Hawai'i suddenly a battleground state in the presidential election, national Democrats have launched an advertising strike to try to undermine President Bush's support among voters in the Islands.
The Democratic National Committee started running a local television ad last night that attacks Bush on tax cuts for the wealthy, healthcare costs, job losses and the war in Iraq. The black-and-white, 30-second ad, which cost $200,000 to purchase and will air through Election Day, debuted in Hawai'i and will also run nationally on cable television and on local television in several other swing states.
MoveOn.org, a liberal advocacy group, has also purchased local television ad time to benefit Sen. John Kerry in Hawai'i.
The Media Fund, a group of Democratic activists, has bought radio ads that criticize Bush on homeland security on popular Clear Channel and Cox Radio stations in Hawai'i. The radio spots will start today and tomorrow and will run through Election Day.
The Bush campaign has not yet announced how it will respond, but Republicans have already succeeded in forcing Democrats to pay attention to a state that had been considered a lock for Kerry.
"Clearly the Kerry campaign is nervous about a state that's a longtime Democratic stronghold," said Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Bush campaign.
The ads are the first real sign that national perceptions about Hawai'i have changed since polls found over the weekend that the presidential election is deadlocked here. The Honolulu Advertiser Hawai'i Poll shows the race between Bush and Kerry as a dead heat, with 12 percent of voters undecided.
While many political analysts believe the state will go to Kerry, the possibility that Hawai'i's four electoral votes are in doubt has put the state on the radar of both campaigns in the final week before the election.
Neal Milner, a political-science professor at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, said he doubts the election will be decided by Hawai'i's electoral votes, but people on the Mainland could be looking closely at the Islands for the first time in memory.
Bush and Kerry need 270 electoral votes to win, and the campaign has narrowed to about a dozen battleground states.
"It's easy to imagine the scenario," Milner said of a nation waiting for Hawai'i to report its vote. "It could be a hell of a lot more interesting than it usually is around here on Election Day."
Charles Sasaki, an American history professor and the associate dean of students at Chaminade University of Honolulu, said the state may be turning slightly more conservative politically. He said Gov. Linda Lingle has highlighted the Bush agenda and the polls have helped raise Hawai'i's visibility on the national stage.
"But I think it's still largely a Democratic state," Sasaki said.
The DNC television ad is targeted mainly at middle-class voters who are undecided.
"We are not taking them for granted," Ellen Moran, who oversees advertising at the DNC, said of Hawai'i voters.
But Lingle told reporters yesterday that the ad shows the Kerry campaign does not understand Hawai'i, where the state's economy has rebounded since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the unemployment rate is the lowest in the nation.
"It seems they're out of touch with what's really happening in our state," Lingle said, after voting early at Honolulu Hale.
The Republican governor, who has been receiving national media calls since the poll results came out, said she believes Bush can win here. Republican presidential candidates have won in Hawai'i only twice since statehood and have been shut out for the past 20 years.
"I'm very confident he has the ability to win," Lingle said.
John Aeto, director of sales at Cox Radio, said he has been involved in Hawai'i radio for nearly two decades and has never seen such national interest before a presidential election. The Media Fund bought ads on Cox's KGMZ, which was all that was available, and Clear Channel's KSSK and KHVH.
"This year it's very, very heated," Aeto said. "We're getting a lot of inquiries."
Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070.
