Television viewers in North Carolina have befriended two codgers sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch of an old country store. They rock and swap insults about Elizabeth Dole, 72, the state's senior senator:
"I'm telling you," says the first good old boy, "Liddy Dole is 93."
"Ninety-three?" replies the second.
"Yup, she ranks 93rd in effectiveness."
"After 40 years in Washington?" "After 40 years in Washington, Dole is 93rd in effectiveness, right near the bottom."
"I've read she's 92," says the second old man.
"Didn't I just tell you she's 93?" says the first.
"No, 92 percent of the time she votes with Bush," says number two.
"What happened to the Liddy Dole I knew?"
"She's just not a go-getter like you and me," says number two as both rock their rockers.
That is the entire content of a 30-second spot that ran again and again in North Carolina over the summer. To the amazement of the Dole camp, the first polls taken just before Labor Day, after this commercial blanketed the state, showed Dole's Democratic challenger, state Sen. Kay Hagan, slightly ahead. She is still ahead, according to recent polls, putting Dole high on many lists of endangered Republican incumbents.
In the 11 states with the closest Senate races this year, record amounts of money are being spent on TV commercials that carry common messages. For the Democrats, it is the venerable mantra that it is "time for a change," epitomized cleverly by the codgers spot. Attacking long tenures in Washington is popular, and linking Republicans to President Bush, Big Oil and tax cuts for large corporations seems to be obligatory. For Republicans and their supporters, all confronting a hostile political environment, it is presenting Democratic opponents as profligate taxers and spenders.
In the North Carolina contest alone, more than $34 million was spent on TV commercials for and against Dole and Hagan, according to industry statistics, an amount unprecedented in the state's history. In Oregon, the commercials shown through last week also cost just over $34 million. In Minnesota, the total spent on ads in the battle between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken was more than $30 million. In Colorado's campaign for an open seat between Rep. Mark Udall (D) and former congressman Bob Schaffer (R), the total spent so far is about $35 million.
If these four states are typical, candidates themselves are spending less money on TV ads than outsiders and party committees. The anti-Dole ads were the work of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which under federal law can make unlimited "independent expenditures" on Hagan's behalf.
In Oregon, Democrat Jeff Merkley had spent just more than $3.2 million on television ads as of last week, and Republican Sen. Gordon Smith had spent about $6.3 million. But the DSCC had chipped in $11 million for commercials attacking Smith or backing Merkley -- a staggering sum that reflects the size of the war chest built this year by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the DSCC. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, by contrast, had spent $5 million on commercials to help Smith.
And there were numerous other players. On the Democratic side, labor groups have spent about $1.2 million on advertisements attacking Smith or supporting Merkley. The Majority Action Fund, an independent expenditure group founded by financier George Soros, has spent nearly $1 million. The Oregon Democratic Party added nearly $700,000. The total from all sources spent on spots to support Merkley was, through last week, just shy of $17 million, far exceeding the total for any previous Senate campaign in the state.
But not greater than the spending on Smith's behalf, which exceeded $17 million. His allies buying TV time include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (about $1.6 million through last week), a group established by Bush supporters called Freedom's Watch ($2.7 million), and groups opposing organized labor (about $1.5 million).
The anti-Dole spot and two subsequent ones featuring the same codgers "are the shrewdest kind of negative ads that don't appear to be negative, but when it's over, you've gotten popped. You've been entertained, but it really hit you in the head, too," said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina and a former political reporter.
Was the commercial fair? The charge that Dole "ranks 93rd" in effectiveness comes from a little-noticed evaluation by a Washington firm called Knowlegis, which had indeed ranked her 93rd in the Senate. The ad misstated Dole's voting record by four percentage points. According to Congressional Quarterly, she supported Bush on 88 percent of roll-call votes, not 92. According to Guillory, both numbers are now well known in North Carolina, because they have been used so often in anti-Dole commercials paid for by the DSCC.
Dole's commercials return again and again to taxes: "Nothing good comes from raising taxes," she tells voters in her latest commercial. Nearly all of her spots in the final weeks of the campaign attack Hagan. None mentions Dole's party affiliation or any specific plans for the future.
Paul Johnson, a political consultant who is Merkley's chief strategist, said the cacophony of commercials from so many sponsors seriously complicates his job of conveying a coherent message to voters. "It becomes very difficult because there are so many other players involved," he said. "I feel sorry for the voters of Oregon, who are just inundated with commercials."
Brooks Kochvar, manager of Smith's campaign, said that by his calculation, the average Oregon television viewer will see 120 commercials -- "a full hour of television" -- during this last week of the campaign. With so many ads, "it's very difficult for anybody to get a message across," Kochvar said.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is investing more than $35 million in this year's political contests, and it recognizes that some of the money will not produce victory for the Chamber's favored candidates. In Colorado, the Chamber spent nearly $2 million on ads intended to support Schaffer's campaign by raising questions about Udall. That effort has been abandoned because "Schaffer is no longer a viable candidate," according to Bill Miller, the Chamber's political director. (Udall has a double-digit lead in recent polls.)
But Miller said the principal purpose of Chamber commercials "is either to create an environment more conducive to moving legislation that we consider important . . . or for educating the public in order to stop bad legislation." So the ads run against Udall did not call for his defeat -- under election law, to remain outside the system of federal regulation, groups such as the Chamber cannot express recommendations on how to vote. And the Chamber's message gets through regardless of what happens in a particular campaign, Miller said.
A typical commercial in Colorado denouncing Udall for opposing offshore oil drilling ended with a picture of him and his office phone number: "Tell Mark Udall we need relief from high gas prices."
The Chamber will continuing to spend heavily in North Carolina and Minnesota until Election Day, Miller said.
The races in North Carolina, Oregon and Minnesota all remain close, ensuring a continuation of the televised barrage until the votes are cast. Only one result is certain: The winners in these states (and in others with hot contests, from New Hampshire to Georgia and Mississippi to New Mexico) will hold some of the most expensive Senate seats in U.S. history.