THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 18, 1994 TAG: 9408180555
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHANTILLY LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
``We're going to have wall-to-wall television,'' said Mike Murphy, who as U.S. Senate candidate Oliver L. North's TV guru surely must be among the few people in Virginia happy at the prospect.
On Wednesday, Murphy showed off his latest creation: a 30-second attack on Democratic incumbent Charles S. Robb. And he happily promised a relentless barrage of commercials between now and Election Day.
The commercial is the first negative ad - consultants like Murphy prefer to call them ``comparative ads'' - of the four-way Senate race.
A Robb spokesman objected to its characterization of Robb as a ``liberal,'' arguing that ``a pro-defense, pro-intervention deficit hawk like Robb can hardly be called a liberal on those issues.''
``For Senate, compare,'' an announcer says as the ad opens and two silhouettes appear on the screen. ``One candidate supports term limits. The other candidate opposes term limits. One candidate is a conservative. The other candidate is a liberal who votes with Bill Clinton 95 percent of the time. And while one candidate wants lower taxes, the other candidate cast the deciding vote to help Bill Clinton raise your taxes.
``These are the facts about Ollie North and Chuck Robb,'' the announcer continues as the faces of both men come into view. ``On the issues, the differences couldn't be clearer.''
Bert Rohrer, a Robb spokesman, complained that the ad distorted his boss' record on taxes.
Robb supported Clinton's economic package and the tax hikes that were part of it, Rohrer acknowledged, but North didn't mention that ``the '93 budget did accomplish real deficit reduction for the first time in a decade, and it helped to get the economy back on its feet.''
The ad makes no mention of the character questions that polls indicate voters find troubling about Robb.
The senator has been embarrassed by publicity about his associations a decade ago with cocaine-snorting party-goers, an alleged affair with a former beauty queen, and his staff's involvement in political intrigues against former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.
Murphy said North wants to concentrate on ``issues'' and on recasting the moderate image Robb acquired as governor in the early 1980s.
Murphy and Mark Merritt, a North spokesman, said the ad will appear immediately across the state, except in Northern Virginia. Residents there will see it eventually, he said, but because time on Washington stations is expensive, North is running his ads downstate first.
Murphy said the North camp is concentrating its fire on Robb, rather than on independents Wilder and J. Marshall Coleman, because ``the two candidates people are most interested in are Robb and North.'' Critical undecided voters are ``with Ollie'' on all three issues spotlighted in the ad, he asserted, but for various reasons haven't decided how they'll vote.
The campaign will spend $100,000 airing the new commercial between now and Labor Day, Murphy said, and another $150,000 by Nov. 8 - Election Day. That's a sliver of what North is expected to spend on commercials overall; the new ad is the third of the Republican's campaign, and Murphy said voters will see up to 30 before he's done.
In what could be a first for a Senate race, the North campaign also is considering advertising on out-of-state TV stations. Another consultant is putting together a 30-minute ``infomercial,'' which would be used to raise money from conservative activists who've been fans of North since he burst into prominence during the Iran-Contra affair in the mid-1980s.
Merritt said the North program could go on the air first in Little Rock, Ark., President Clinton's home, and also may be aired in other Southern states. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS/
File photo
GOP Senate candidate Oliver North plans more TV ads.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SENATE RACE CANDIDATE by CNB