USA Today - Supreme Court Nominee Alito Ad Storm Waiting to Strike After the Holidays

November 9, 2005
By Mark Memmott
USA TODAY

The media battle among conservative and liberal interest groups over Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court has begun, but it will be a quiet rumble until January.

Groups that have lined up for and against the conservative federal judge have rolled out a few TV and radio ads. But the Senate Judiciary Committee's decision not to begin confirmation hearings on President Bush's latest high court nominee until Jan. 9 means that what is likely to be a spirited barrage of ads won't begin until after the holidays.

Advertising analysts say there's no point in trying to get the public's attention on the Alito nomination until after then. Interest groups that have raised tens of millions of dollars to spend on trying to influence the opinions of senators and the public acknowledge that for the most part, they're holding their fire now.

I still want to wait and see how things shake out, but I'm thinking we certainly won't be setting any spending records, says Evan Tracey, chief operating officer at TNSMI/Campaign Media Analysis Group, which monitors spending on political ads.

Progress for America, a conservative group, last week rolled out the first TV ad in support of Alito's nomination. The group says it spent $425,000 to broadcast the biographical spot for a week on CNN and Fox News Channel. However, Progress has let the ad's run expire and, for now at least, has no plans to extend it.

Another conservative group, the Family Research Council, will start airing its first ad today. It plans to spend $100,000 to broadcast it in states such as Nebraska that have Democratic senators but were carried by the Republican president in the 2004 election.

Meanwhile, only one liberal group has put an ad on the air. People for the American Way's anti-Alito spot ran Sunday during NBC's Meet the Press, and it is on cable news channels this week. The group's president, Ralph Neas, says the weeks around Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year's will be low periods for interest groups' activities.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council agrees that groups probably will do less advertising and lobbying during the holidays. But, he says, it also might be just the right time to get our message out that activist judges want to remove God from public places.

If groups advertised heavily during the holidays, they could offend some people, says Ken Goldstein, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, which studies political ads. He says groups won't hesitate to spend after the holidays.

Alito would replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Because she is at the ideological center of a divided court, replacing her could alter its course on several issues. She is among six justices on the nine-member court who have backed abortion rights.

Alito has long been a favorite choice for the court among conservative groups. Since he was nominated Oct. 31, he has been endorsed by the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, the American Center for Law & Justice and the Committee for Justice, among others.