Bill Bradley for President, Inc.

"Crystal City Bio"
60 sec. TV spot running in NH starting Nov. 17, 1999 and in Iowa starting Nov. 18, 1999.
 
 

Crystal Team
.
.
 
 

 Announcer: Bill Bradley was born in Crystal City, Missouri.  He was a basketball hero, an Olympic Gold Medalist, a Rhodes Scholar and a U.S. Senator from New Jersey for 18 years.

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan: The 1986 Tax Reform act--the first major reform of the 20th century didn't just happen.  Bill made it happen.

Sen. Bob Kerrey: When the verdict was handed down in the Rodney King case, Senator Bradley took two pencils and tapped them slowly 56 times to represent the 56 time that Rodney King was struck by the Los angeles Police Department.  The Senate was hushed as the sound of those pencils echoes through us.

Maureen Drumm: When I was pregnant with my second child, Bill Bradley proposed a law that women be allowed to stay in the hospital for 48 hours.  Thanks to Senator Bradley, my daughter is alive today.  That's the type of man I want in the White House.

Chyron: It Can Happen.

  

 
Analysis: Upon release of this first Bradley presidential TV ad, Bradley campaign communications director Anita Dunn stated, "We have to introduce Bill Bradley to the American people, particularly the people in Iowa and New Hampshire."  Athough the ad went up more than a month after the Gore campaign first hit the airwaves, Dunn explained that the campaign was going by its own timetable. "We believe voters are starting to pay attention," she said.

The traditional bio sketch at the beginning of this ad is quite brief.  Instead the producers have chosen three individuals to talk about Bradley--two of his former Senate colleagues and a constituent.  The issues they highlight are Tax Reform Act of 1986, which Bradley played a major role in getting through Congress; race relations, which has been a focus of his campaign from its very outset; and a piece of legislation Bradley introduced, The Newborns' and Mothers' Health Protection Act, which was signed into law in September 1996.  This legislation required insurers to provide 48 hour hospital stays for mothers and their babies. Some observers questioned inclusion of Maureen Drumm's broad statement, "Thanks to Senator Bradley, my daughter is alive today."  (For example an "Ad Watch" in the Nov. 17 Washington Post termed the claim "highly misleading.") 

The campaign put additional video clips on its website to complement this ad.