Major TV-ad buys heat up Senate race

Posted on Fri, Jun. 18, 2004




CAMPAIGN 2004


Major TV-ad buys heat up Senate race

The campaign for U.S. Senate in Florida began in earnest as Republicans and Democrats announced large media buys aimed at uncommitted voters.

BY MARC CAPUTO

mcaputo@herald.com


Don't bother flipping the channel if a campaign ad hits your TV set this summer -- chances are you'll just run into another commercial in Florida's candidate-packed U.S. Senate race, which is shaping up to be one of the nation's most expensive, divisive and politically crucial statewide contests.

Millionaire Miami businessman Doug Gallagher, a Republican, kicked off the race's first statewide broadcast- and cable-ad blitz Thursday with an unprecedented $1.3 million campaign against the government in Washington. The ads, which will run on Spanish- and English-language stations for three weeks, quickly elicited a lively exchange with a rival.

On the Democratic side, U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch announced his campaign's first commercials that spotlight his efforts to help Florida fishermen after Hurricane Georges and the family of Jimmy Ryce, a 9-year-old South Miami-Dade boy who was kidnapped, raped and murdered in 1995. Estimated cost: about $300,000 over the next two weeks in West Palm Beach, Orlando and Panama City.

Though the ads aren't the first in the race -- Republican Johnnie Byrd was first, followed by Democratic Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas -- they signify that the once-quiet campaign is under way in earnest. Nearly one-third of voters have yet to commit to any candidate for the winner-take-all Aug. 31 primaries.
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''The gloves are going to come off,'' said Republican strategist David Johnson, former campaign consultant for two Senate candidates who dropped out of the race earlier this year. ``This is the sound of the starting gun.''
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