Presidential ads going negative - no positive finish this year

Gore, the Democratic candidate, said Tuesday that Americans need a president who will fight for them "and has the experience to do so." Gore advisers jumped on the Texas governor for challenging the vice president's character after promising to run a positive campaign. For their part, the vice president's team planned to continue raising questions about Bush's credentials from the campaign trail, but decided against - at least for now - a TV ad making that same point.

On Tuesday, a week before Election Day, each candidate struggled to pull away from the other. Ralph Nader, the presidential race's third-party wild card, upped the ante with a biting satire ad that cast the Bush-Gore race as a choice between "the lesser of two evils." The negative turn was further proof that neither major-party campaign was confident enough of victory to close the race in traditional fashion with high-minded positive ads. Analysts said both candidates could face a backlash _ with little time to recover. A number of Republicans privately said they were surprised that Bush would take the risk to go negative, suggesting his move belies the apparent confidence he and his troops are careful to keep on display. The candidates chased each other across California and Oregon, two states Gore hoped long ago to lock up. Bush could win Oregon and its seven electoral votes, but California, the election's biggest prize at 54 electoral votes, is still a longshot. Gore looked at a rally packing a Los Angeles intersection and, using Hollywood-agent lingo, called out: "We're going to win California. Book it!" At the rally, celebrities supporting Gore were not too charitable toward the Republicans. Cher used profanity to denounce Republicans and director Rob Reiner led the crowd in shouting, "No son of a Bush!" over and over before Gore took the stage with actor Martin Sheen, who plays the U.S. president in the hit TV series "The West Wing."

In Oregon, Gore cast himself as the dragon-slaying populist in hopes of drawing Nader supporters back into the Democratic fold. "You need someone who will fight for you and win and has the experience to do so," Gore said. The line came out of polls that show many voters still question Bush's credentials. Bush has criticized Gore for pandering to "class warfare" in his tax-cut arguments. Gore turned that against the Republican on Tuesday, too, saying: "What he is actually proposing is a massive redistribution of wealth from the middle-class to the wealthiest few. It is, in fact, a form of class warfare on behalf of billionaires." Bush stuck to the strategy of telling voters he is a sunny optimist, a champion of bipartisanship. "I can't think of a better way to end a campaign in an important state than to come to a place that is founded not on politics but on love," he said at a Christian relief agency in San Jose, California. His new ad says Gore is "bending the truth again" and talking "nonsense" about Bush's Social Security pension fund reform plan. It shows a video clip of Gore saying he had never said anything that was untrue. The ad ends with the word "Really?" driving home Bush's point: Gore can't be trusted. Strategist Karl Rove said Bush needed a blanket inoculation against Gore, who has tried and abandoned several lines of attack in recent days _ from the condition of schools and nursing homes in Texas to Bush's lack of experience. With polls showing Bush slightly ahead or the race essentially even, Rove said, "It's close enough that we can't let it dissipate, and the way to make sure it doesn't dissipate is to counterpunch."

Gore allies hoped to make Bush pay a price for the character ad. "How can Bush bring civility to Washington when he can't even bring civility to his own faltering campaign?" said Gore deputy campaign manager Mark Fabiani, who also called the Republican candidate a liar and hypocrite. Hoping the Bush strategy will backfire, Gore advisers decided after a day-long meeting Tuesday to make their next ad a recitation of the vice president's experience in public service, said a senior strategist, opting for a more subtle approach to question Bush's credentials. Republicans offered cautious support of Bush's ad, which will be rotated in an dlrs 11 million campaign with a more positive spot about his governing philosophy. Even that high-toned ad is called, not coincidentally, "Trust." "Making Gore and his lack of trustworthiness a dominate issue is a strong way to close the campaign for Bush," said Scott Reed, who managed Bob Dole's 1996 campaign. But he said the fact that Bush took this step shows "that Gore's scare tactics are beginning to draw some blood, especially in states like Florida."

(AP)