Fall TV lineup filled with political spots

MINNEAPOLIS -- Patty Wetterling, the Democratic congressional candidate in a Republican-leaning district here, trailed her opponent by 9 percentage points a month ago. Then she ran a stark, 30-second TV commercial.

The ad has helped turn the race around.

DAILY BREAKDOWN: TV ads airing one day on one station

Four days after Florida Rep. Mark Foley resigned in disgrace, Wetterling broadcast the first ad in the country on the scandal over Foley's suggestive computer messages to former congressional pages. She demanded an investigation, and she noted her activism on behalf of children, a cause she adopted after her 11-year-old son Jacob was abducted 17 years ago and never seen again.

Now, a Minneapolis Star-Tribune poll released Tuesday gives Wetterling an 8-point lead over Republican Michele Bachmann, who had been favored to carry the 6th Congressional District, the most conservative in the state.

Between the ad itself and the coverage it generated, "there's not anybody in the state who doesn't know Patty Wetterling is connected to that issue," says political scientist Steve Smith, who lives in the district.

Though some candidates are experimenting with posting ads on websites and campaign video on YouTube, old-fashioned commercials on local TV stations remain what Democratic strategist David Axelrod calls "the nuclear weapon" of politics...

What's missing from the day of ads is as notable as what's included. Not one cites party affiliation -- the better to attract independent voters -- and none mentions the Iraq war or any other foreign-policy issue.

The war is an unavoidable topic in other venues, of course, including campaign debates and TV newscasts. Through this day, local news programs repeatedly report that a 27-year-old Army sergeant from Montevideo, Minn., has been injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

But Republican candidates don't want to spotlight the increasingly unpopular war or the president whose approval ratings have slumped, says political scientist Steven Schier of Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. The subject carries risks for Democrats, too, who are trying to appeal to independent and Republican voters.

In her ads, Klobuchar is trying to be seen not as an anti-war liberal but as a tough-minded prosecutor, says Smith, who teaches at Washington University in St. Louis. Klobuchar is the chief prosecutor in Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis...

•	Fall TV lineup filled with political spots USA Today, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2006 Byline: Susan Page, USA TODAY

	Story also ran in 1 others:  KARE11.com (MN)