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WASHINGTON - President Bush's political team is orchestrating a vastly larger advertising campaign than thought possible under federal law, taking control of millions in Republican Party funds simply by inserting the phrase "our leaders in Congress" in selected commercials.
The GOP strategy had gone unnoticed for weeks by Sen. John Kerry and the Democrats, who now may abandon their own less-cost-efficient approach to advertising.
Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager, said in an interview that federal election law allows the campaign access to party money "provided that your message is broader than the individual candidate and includes a discussion of the overall agenda and the message of the party."
This month, the Republicans began airing television and radio commercials paid for jointly by the president's re-election campaign and the RNC and including the words "our leaders in Congress."
The ads say Bush and congressional leaders have plans to strengthen homeland security, expand the economy and reduce health-care costs. Some also attack Kerry and "the liberals in Congress."
The president appears briefly in each of the TV ads, and his voice is heard in the radio commercials.
Federal law limits overall spending by presidential candidates to about $75 million for the general election campaign, including advertising. In addition, the political parties can spend $16 million on campaign activities - TV and radio commercials included - in coordination with their presidential candidates.
Republicans, however, say the cost of ads that mention congressional leaders or broadly partisan tags such as "liberals" can be split between the re-election campaign and the RNC without counting toward the $16 million party limit. The presidential campaign does have to count its share of the cost against its $75 million spending limit, but the campaign gains the ability to control a larger budget as well as the message in the ads.
Jano Cabrera, a Democratic National Committee spokesman, said Democratic officials were unfamiliar with the GOP ad strategy until asked about it by a reporter.
"We do not discuss our future ad strategy," Cabrera said, but other Democratic officials said the party was quickly looking into following the Republicans' lead.
In the three weeks since the general election spending limits kicked in for Bush, his campaign and the RNC combined have spent roughly $29 million on advertising.
But the spots clearly are meant to help Bush most of all - and give his campaign control of the party money.
The ads mostly are appearing on network affiliates in contested presidential battlegrounds such as Iowa, Florida and Ohio. They aren't on the air in states that aren't contested in the presidential race even if those states have competitive House or Senate races.
The Federal Election Commis-sion did not raise any immediate objection to the strategy, but campaign finance experts are divided over its legality.
Tom Josefiak, a Bush campaign lawyer who also is a former FEC chairman, said, "These ads were created to benefit not only the president but candidates in Congress, and in saying that, it's clear to me looking at the law and regulations that everything we do is in accordance with the law."
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