Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 16, 1993 TAG: 9310160159
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DALE EISMAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Financial reports filed Friday by gubernatorial candidates George Allen and Mary Sue Terry documented the cost of the attack ads both have been putting on the air in recent weeks.
Through Sept. 30, Terry had spent almost $1.8 million to produce and air her commercials, her report said. Allen, beginning the campaign with little cash and struggling to catch up, had spent more than $1 million less.
And the reports don't reflect spending for the blizzard of television commercials the two campaigns have unleashed this week.
The toughest of those ads have come from Terry, who has seen a 29-point lead in opinion polls evaporate since the spring. She and Lt. Gov. Donald Beyer, who is seeking re-election, at times seem almost to be running against Virginia Beach religious broadcaster Pat Robertson rather than against Allen and fellow Republican Mike Farris.
Terry's latest commercial, on the air in most of the state since midweek, hammers Allen on a list of issues Democrats believe are critical in the campaign's suburban battleground. The text:
"George Allen on the issues:
A five-day waiting period on the purchase of a handgun - Allen against.
Respecting choice for women - Against and now tries to hide his position.
A bill to fight domestic violence - Allen against.
Public schools - against full funding. Allen wants to give tax money to private academies.
George Allen's against so much, guess who's for him? Pat Robertson. Is that what's best for Virginia?"
Produced for Terry by Washington-based adman Robert Squier, the ad misstates or at least incompletely states several Allen positions.
The reference to Allen's opposition to "a bill to fight domestic violence," for example, stems from his vote in the mid-1980s against a legislative study of marital rape. Allen opposed the study, which cost $27,000, because he says he knew without spending anything that domestic violence legislation was needed. He supported the marital rape bill the study produced a year later, he points out.
Squier, who made commercials for Charles Robb's 1981 gubernatorial campaign and worked for Terry in 1985 and '89 races for attorney general, is one of the nation's best known Democratic media consultants. But state Democrats have been widely, if privately, critical of his work this year as Terry's commercials have done little to dispel her image as stern and aloof.
Allen's ads, produced by Greg Stevens & Co. of Alexandria, have shown off a sometimes folksy, sometimes serious, but always smiling GOP candidate.
Stevens, a protege of GOP media guru Roger Ailes, has Allen shrugging off Terry's attacks in his latest commercial.
"It's still pitiful," Allen says, facing the camera.
"Now my opponent is so desperate to stay in power, her attacks have gotten absurd.
Terry's ad says I'm somehow against public schools. What nonsense. My daughter, Tyler, started kindergarten in public school this year."
Allen has refused to say whether, if elected, he would put Tyler in Richmond's public schools.
Allen is airing a slightly different version of the commercial in Western Virginia, there rebutting Terry's suggestion that he's opposed to the $1.2 billion upgrade of U.S. Route 58, the major road between Southwest Virginia and Hampton Roads.
The financial reports filed Friday also documented other major costs, including:
Payrolls. Allen shelled out more than $183,000 in staff salaries and another $60,289 for consulting services between July 1 and Sept. 30. Terry spent less on salaries, $98,105, but more on consultants, $130,232.
Polling. Terry's fund-raising edge shows here, though she can't have liked what she was buying as her standing in the polls declined through the summer. She reported paying $131,658 for opinion surveys from July-September, while Allen spent just $24,200.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB