In an official Kerry-Edwards commercial released last week, Kristen Breitweiser, a Sept. 11 widow, criticizes Bush for not making America safer, directly challenging the president's strongest claim. Breitweiser says, "I fought for the 9/11 commission, something George W. Bush -- the man my husband, Ron, and I voted for -- didn't think was necessary. And during the commission hearings, we learned the truth: We are no safer today." As she speaks, the ad shows family photos, including one in which her late husband cuddles their baby girl.

If "Wolves" is aimed at the fear factor, the Bush campaign's "Ashley's Story" is meant to evoke warm, fuzzy feelings. It is based on an encounter Bush had with teenager Ashley Faulkner on May 4, when Ashley, now 16; her father, Lynn Faulkner; and neighbor Linda Prince attended a Bush campaign even in Lebanon, Ohio. Ashley's mother was killed during the attack on the World Trade Center towers. As Bush passed the Faulkners on the rope line, Prince said to him, "Mr. President, this young lady lost her mother in the World Trade Center."

Bush turned back and gave the girl a big hug while Lynn Faulkner took a single picture with his digital camera. The picture shows Ashley's face buried in the president's chest. That night Lynn Faulkner e-mailed his photo to a dozen family members and friends, and two days later the picture appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer. Says Ashley in the ad: "He's the most powerful man in the world, and all he wants to do is make sure I'm safe, that I'm OK."

The 60-second spot represents the most expensive TV ad of the presidential campaign. It is to air in nine states -- Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- on both network and cable channels, at a cost of $14.2 million. Funded by the GOP special-interest group the Progress for America Voter Fund, run by a political consultant who is a protégé of Karl Rove's, the ad is being supported with 2.3 million direct mailings, e-mails, phone calls and a Web site (ashleysstory.com). Filmed in July, the ad, like "Wolves," has been withheld until the final days of the campaign.

"Brooke's Story," featuring the sister of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, and sponsored by the liberal MoveOn.org PAC, is the emotional flip side to "Ashley's Story." Where "Ashley's Story," with its treacly piano score, feels like a made-for-television Hallmark movie, "Brooke's Story" is akin to a "Fahrenheit 9/11" outtake.

It opens up with Bush, dressed in a tuxedo, at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner in Washington, joking about being unable to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "Those WMD have got to be somewhere ... Ha, ha ... nope, not over here."

The spot then cuts to Brooke Campbell: "I watched President Bush make a joke. My brother died looking for WMD." Her brother, Sgt. Ryan Campbell, was killed on April 29 in a suicide bomber attack in Iraq.

MoveOn raised $1.2 million from 18,477 members to help get this ad on the air, scheduled for an initial run Monday through Wednesday in the swing states of Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Still, that ad buy is dwarfed by the $14.2 million behind "Ashley's Story."

But the primary difference between these two spots goes beyond the respective media buys. The Bush campaign's ad is a sheer appeal to emotion, while MoveOn's ad is about tragic reality.

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