Kerry bids to get message across with $25m ad campaign

DEMOCRATIC Presidential hopeful John Kerry yesterday launched a $25 million advertising campaign as he struggles to capitalise on falling approval for President George W Bush’s war in Iraq.

Jittery Democrats are increasingly worried that a public perception of Mr Kerry as cold and aloof is preventing him from overtaking Mr Bush in the polls despite the President’s mounting difficulties in the war-torn country.

The new ad campaign, one of the biggest ever undertaken, seeks to promote Mr Kerry’s Vietnam War experience and his political career as “a lifetime of service and strength”. One of two new 60-second ads, Heart, features two Vietnam veterans as well as wife Teresa Heinz Kerry and daughter Vanessa Kerry and presents Kerry’s background as a county prosecutor and US senator. The other ad, Lifetime, focuses on the Navy service in Vietnam.