Attack Ads

Turn on your TV, fellow voter. Look, there's dastardly Dan Onorato, who seemingly has turned thousands of Pittsburghers into unemployed zombies. And dirty Jon Runyan, who appears to help fist-shaking foreigners in their oil fields by opposing clean-energy jobs in New Jersey. And that shifty Mike Fitzpatrick, who allegedly pulled a midnight deal in Harrisburg just so he could keep raising Bucks County property taxes - all while stuffing an extra $20,000 into his own pockets.

WASHINGTON - Already, both sides in the presidential race have loosed the electronic dogs of war. On TV sets in Pennsylvania and other battleground states, it already looks like the first week of October, as the candidates and free-spending super-PACs working on their behalf launch attacks and counterattacks unprecedented in size, cost, and negativity for so early in the campaign. The strategic aim, of course, is to define your opponent before he can define himself, to begin hardening unflattering perceptions that can be reinforced by the onslaught to come.

BOSTON - Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and his chief Democratic rival, Elizabeth Warren, have signed a pledge to curb political attack ads by outside groups in their Massachusetts Senate race. Under the terms of the deal, each campaign would agree to donate half the cost of any third-party ad to charity if that ad either supports their candidacy or attacks their opponent by name. At least one outside group that has targeted Warren immediately raised objections to the deal, while two outside groups that have targeted Brown said they were inclined to respect the deal, with one pledging to suspend its advertising.

PUEBLO, Colo. - Mitt Romney and President Obama both deplored the pervasive presence of televised attack ads in the race for the White House on Thursday, though neither acknowledged being helped as well as harmed. Each blamed his foe. Romney went first, saying of the president's campaign, "They just blast ahead" with ads that have been judged false by independent fact checkers. "I don't know whatever happened to a campaign of 'hope and change,' " he said, a mocking reference to the spirit of optimism that Obama evoked during his successful run for the White House in 2008.

Democratic heavyweights joined attorney general candidate Kathleen Kane on Monday in her attempt to beat back a series of negative campaign spots that one nonpartisan fact-checking group has described as "the most blatantly false attack ads of the political season. " Flanked by politicos such as former Gov. Ed Rendell and former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, Kane denied the ads' contention that she was soft on rape during her time as a prosecutor. She called on her Republican opponent, Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed, to denounce the spots.

American voters have been telling pollsters for years that they disapprove of negative campaigning, and then - like addicts unable to control a stupid habit - electing those who practice it. But this year, the candidates are behaving as though voters have gotten serious about breaking the habit. Or at least controlling it. It's not that voters, particularly those in South Carolina, haven't seen a few million dollars worth of negative ads. It's that the majority of ads have not been negative, and when they are, they usually come couched as something else - from setting the record straight to comparing records to making sure everyone understands the treachery of the other guy's negative ads. "This is an environment where people are reasonably happy and not as angry as five years ago," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center in Washington, which does frequent polling about national attitudes.

If you think that Marty Weinberg's TV ads about John Street are harsh, you should see what he's sending out in the mail. "Protect your family. Elect Marty Weinberg mayor. Not John Street!" says the full-color flier mailed to a number of Philadelphia homes yesterday, paid for by the Weinberg campaign. The flier, which highlights Weinberg's endorsement in the Democratic mayoral primary by the Fraternal Order of Police, features a picture of a bullet on the cover. "John Street would be a disaster when it comes to fighting crime," it says, accusing the former City Council president of backing legislation to give free drugs to addicts, voting to cut funding for abused children and voting against full disability pay for cops.

While New Jersey takes the spotlight with one of only two governor's races nationwide this year, the election for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shouldn't get lost in the dark. It's likely to be an expensive, special-interest slug-fest that taints well-qualified candidates and erodes respect for a court that doesn't have any respect to spare. If that happens, the election could be another example of why the state's highest judges should be appointed on merit. The usual drill is for judicial candidates to pass the tin cup to fellow lawyers, labor unions (usually pro-Democrat)

The Philadelphia mayoral campaign entered a combative and costly phase yesterday, as all five major candidates launched new television ads after a weekend debate peppered with attacks on the front-runner. Two of the ads - from State Rep. Dwight Evans and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady - take aim at the leader in the polls, businessman Tom Knox, who is running as an outsider bent on stopping City Hall corruption. Those messages, in turn, prompted the Knox campaign to cue up a counterattack in an ad saying his rivals "ought to be ashamed" of their last-minute tactics.

Steve Forbes won Arizona and a shot at the label of "comeback kid" by abandoning attack ads and focusing his campaign on his status as an outsider and a detailed explanation of what he wants to do as president. The New Jersey magazine publisher, given up for politically dead after disappointing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, won Arizona by appealing to voters who want their candidate to have a clear vision of the future and voters who want a flat tax to replace the current federal tax system.

ESCALATING one of tech's biggest rivalries, Microsoft Corp. is accusing Google Inc. of compromising the privacy of Gmail users - leveling the charge in an unusual, in-your-face ad campaign that it hopes will resonate with consumers even if some analysts call it alarmist and irresponsible. The public attacks - in print, television and billboard messages that warn consumers about the supposed dangers of being "Scroogled," or mistreated by Google - marks a strategic shift in a clash of Internet titans, under the guidance of a bare-knuckle political-campaign strategist.

Kathleen Kane holds a 20-point lead in her bid to become the first woman and first Democrat to be elected Pennsylvania's attorney general, according to the latest Inquirer Pennsylvania Poll. But with barely a week remaining before next Tuesday's vote, nearly half of those surveyed said neither Kane nor her Republican rival, David Freed, had made much of an impression yet. The new numbers come as both candidates have launched the first television ads of their fall race, hoping to overcome that name-recognition gap. "My guess is that each side takes their share of the undecided voters, but we will still have our first Democratic attorney general," predicted Jefrey Pollock, president of the Democratic firm Global Strategies Group, which helped conduct the bipartisan poll.

Kathleen Kane holds a 20-point lead in her bid to become the first woman and first Democrat to be elected Pennsylvania's attorney general, according to the latest Inquirer Pennsylvania Poll. But with barely a week remaining before next Tuesday's vote, nearly half of those surveyed said neither Kane nor her Republican rival, David Freed, had made much of an impression yet. The new numbers come as both candidates have launched the first television ads of their fall race, hoping to overcome that name-recognition gap. "My guess is that each side takes their share of the undecided voters, but we will still have our first Democratic attorney general," predicted Jefrey Pollock, president of the Democratic firm Global Strategies Group, which helped conduct the bipartisan poll.

With less than three weeks before Election Day, the two candidates vying to become Pennsylvania's top prosecutor continue to wage their campaign in relative obscurity. In fact, the most dynamic figure to emerge in the race is not even on the ballot. As Democrat Kathleen Kane and Republican David Freed grapple to fix themselves in voters' minds, both have seized upon the last man elected attorney general - Gov. Corbett - as a foil in defining their own personas. "It's hard to find that crack and get the attention span of voters," said Christopher Borick, a political scientist and pollster at Muhlenberg College.

Democratic heavyweights joined attorney general candidate Kathleen Kane on Monday in her attempt to beat back a series of negative campaign spots that one nonpartisan fact-checking group has described as "the most blatantly false attack ads of the political season. " Flanked by politicos such as former Gov. Ed Rendell and former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, Kane denied the ads' contention that she was soft on rape during her time as a prosecutor. She called on her Republican opponent, Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed, to denounce the spots.

PUEBLO, Colo. - Mitt Romney and President Obama both deplored the pervasive presence of televised attack ads in the race for the White House on Thursday, though neither acknowledged being helped as well as harmed. Each blamed his foe. Romney went first, saying of the president's campaign, "They just blast ahead" with ads that have been judged false by independent fact checkers. "I don't know whatever happened to a campaign of 'hope and change,' " he said, a mocking reference to the spirit of optimism that Obama evoked during his successful run for the White House in 2008.

Cory Booker must feel like the halfback who finally gets to play in the big game — and fumbles the football. But he will get other chances. The Newark mayor's inarticulate handling of a Meet the Press question Sunday about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's prior career with the Bain Capital private equity firm was painful to watch, but not fatal. Since he was President Obama's surrogate, it was surprising that Booker seemed to defend Romney, saying he disagreed with Obama ads that appear to equate private equity firms with evil incarnate.

WASHINGTON - Already, both sides in the presidential race have loosed the electronic dogs of war. On TV sets in Pennsylvania and other battleground states, it already looks like the first week of October, as the candidates and free-spending super-PACs working on their behalf launch attacks and counterattacks unprecedented in size, cost, and negativity for so early in the campaign. The strategic aim, of course, is to define your opponent before he can define himself, to begin hardening unflattering perceptions that can be reinforced by the onslaught to come.

MITT ROMNEY's presidential campaign asked TV stations across Pennsylvania to pull an attack ad against rival Rick Santorum that was scheduled to begin running Monday, in light of the serious illness of Santorum's 3-year-old daughter. "We have done this out of deference to Sen. Santorum's decision to suspend his campaign for personal reasons," said Andrea Saul, press secretary for the Romney campaign. Santorum was planning private campaign meetings Monday but canceled them because his daughter Bella, who has the genetic disorder Trisomy 18, is hospitalized.

If the Republican primary season so far has been any indication, Pennsylvanians should be expecting three weeks of never-ending, eyeball-straining political attack ads as the GOP presidential contest arrives here in advance of the April 24 vote. But don't change that channel just yet. Turns out that Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and the super political action committees backing their candidacies have not yet shelled out the dough for ad time here at the rate seen when they carpet-bombed earlier primary states such as Florida and Wisconsin.