Kerry Cries "Uncle!"

Suddenly, John Kerry is against all those independent negative advertisements.


Kerry said the avalanche of negative television spots and attacks being shown on US screens was scaring off voters.

"Americans need a real conversation over our future," Kerry said in a speech at a school in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

"What they don't need is all these trumped up advertisements, they just make people curl up and walk away," added the Massachusetts senator.

"I'm calling them 'misleadisments,'" Kerry said of the adverts. "It's all scare tactics ... because (Bush) has no record to run on."

The Democrats have complained bitterly about a new advertisement that shows Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), September 11 hijack leader Mohamed Atta, Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and the ruins of the World Trade Center, and questioned whether Kerry was up to dealing with them.

A statement called the spot, run by the Republican group Progress for America Voter Fund, the latest in a series of "desperate and despicable attack ads" aimed at diverting attention from Bush's record.

The Democrats have rolled out a new advert of their own, titled "Despicable," in which they accused the Bush administration of "playing politics with terror" and dividing the country to win a second term at the White House.

A group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has also been at the center of the television advertising battle with controversial spots aimed at discrediting Kerry's Vietnam War record. The adverts accused the decorated Vietnam War veteran of exaggerating or lying about his exploits.

In Wisconsin, Kerry also made a personality attack against the president, saying that he and his rival are both children of privilege, but Bush considers his comfortable position an entitlement.

Kerry said "he and I, we went to the same university, we're both very privileged." Both men attended Yale University.

The Democrat added that from his education "came a sense of fairness and responsibility" while Bush "thinks it's entitlement."

Do you think it might be that the relative pittance that anti-Kerry forces have spent is having a much greater effect than the tens of millions that anti-Bush forces have spent.