Kerry puts off ads in Va.

Kerry campaign will postpone buying TV ads in Virginia.

By CHELYEN DAVIS

Date published: 9/10/2004

GOP says it's sign Democrat giving up on Old Dominion

RICHMOND--Despite Virginia Democrats' hopes that the state will be a winnable battleground for presidential candidate John Kerry, his campaign said yesterday that it will put off buying advertising in Virginia unless poll results show the state to be up for grabs.

Earlier this week The Associated Press reported that the Kerry campaign is concentrating its advertising in just 14 states, down from the 20-state playing field it had planned earlier.

In a conference call with reporters from Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Louisiana yesterday, Kerry strategist Tad Devine said the decision to pull back advertising in those states is a strategic move, designed to conserve advertising dollars until later in the campaign when voters are more likely to be paying attention.

"We have to take a hard look at Virginia. We're going to do that in the first real wave of post convention polling," Devine said. "Virginia is a place we can win, but our commitment to it must be tempered by where the state is in the most contemporary research."

The decision is partly financial. Kerry chose to accept public funding for his campaign after he was officially nominated at the Democratic convention in July. That means he can no longer accept private donations and is limited to a campaign fund of $75 million.

President George Bush started taking public money, too, after he was officially nominated at the Republican convention last week.

The decision to take public money "had enormous consequences," Devine said, and it forced the campaign to forgo a lot of paid media advertising during August.

But the campaign has put several million dollars in reserve to advertise in states that might become battlegrounds as Election Day nears.

Whether Virginia becomes one of those states or not remains to be seen.

"Unless the election takes a strong turn toward Kerry, they are very unlikely to spend much or any additional TV money in Virginia," said University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato. "This election has moved, since the Republican convention, toward Bush. As a result, Kerry is back to his key battleground states, and Virginia is not one of them.

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Date published: 9/10/2004