US: After a two-month barrage of advertising by the Republican National Committee which has defined him in a negative light, Senator John Kerry is launching a major television drive this week to regain the initiative in the US presidential election campaign.
The Democratic challenger for the White House is committing $27 million to a month-long series of TV commercials that will highlight his biography and Vietnam record in 19 battleground states and on national cable news networks.
The ads being launched by Mr Kerry show him standing in a living room in front of a US flag, speaking about his "clear national priorities for America", such as security, jobs, healthcare and education, while patriotic music plays softly.
Mr Kerry has also begun defining an economic platform showing he is pro-business, and has recruited major corporate supporters, including investment expert Mr Warren Buffet, to his campaign.
The highly-disciplined Bush camp has poured over $60 million into TV and radio ads since March in an attempt to diminish the Democratic challenger before the autumn campaign.
At a time when American voters were beginning to look more closely at Mr Kerry after he won the primary contests, the Republican ads have portrayed the Massachusetts senator as weak on national security and prone to flip-flopping on issues.
The Kerry campaign has been criticised by many analysts in recent days as listless and inept, and outmanoeuvred by a vulnerable president. They point out that, despite the three worst months of his presidency, Mr Bush's popular support has not fallen precipitously. He is running neck and neck with Mr Kerry in most polls, and is seen by voters as a firmer leader on issues relating to terrorism and national security.
Some Democratic campaign staff are concerned that the Bush strategy is paying off and are also worried about reports of disarray in the Kerry camp, which has yet to set up a "war room" or open an office in key states like Ohio and has suffered from staff turnover. The Bush-Cheney campaign established its war room two months ago and its Ohio office in January.
However, Mr Tom Lindenfeld, former director of elections for the Democratic National Committee, said the Kerry campaign was doing "remarkably well" given that the Bush-Cheney team had a year to prepare for the presidential election.
Mr Kerry only emerged from the primary process in March and had to build a national campaign from scratch, and had raised a staggering $80 million, much of it from small donations, Mr Lindenfeld pointed out.
Also an organisation called America Coming Together, a well-funded initiative to mobilise Democrats in 17 states that may prove crucial to the outcome of the 2004 presidential race, had been working in Ohio and other states for months, he said.
Mr Kerry's campaign has been helped by non-party organisations known as 527s that are not subject to the campaign contribution limit of $2,000 a head and have spent at least $28 million in the last two months on ads attacking Mr Bush.
The Bush campaign still has a cash advantage, but it has now spent, by some estimates, $100 million of its $185 million war chest in what Mr Tony Corrado, a finance expert at the Brookings Institution, called "the most expensive and concentrated political advertising campaign we've ever seen in American politics".
President Bush yesterday stepped up his re-election effort, and began campaigning as if polling day was only weeks away, rather than six months. He and his wife Laura barnstormed across Michigan and Ohio in a convoy of eight buses emblazoned with the slogan "Yes, America Can".