Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Ad attacks Kerry over Yucca record

Spot makes no mention of Bush's OK of site

The Bush-Cheney campaign has begun running a Nevada-specific ad trying to portray Democratic challenger John Kerry as a flip-flopper on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. COURTESY OF BUSH-CHENEY '04

The president's re-election campaign unveiled a Nevada-specific television ad Monday questioning Democratic challenger John Kerry's record on Yucca Mountain.

The ad paints the senator as a flip-flopper based on seven specific votes he has made over the course of two decades on the nuclear waste repository issue, one seen as a key political wedge in this battleground state.

"Listening to John Kerry, you'd think he'd been against Yucca Mountain his entire career," a voice states at the start of the 30-second spot, which began running Monday. "But Kerry voted to establish the nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain."

The ad makes no mention of Kerry's 1999 vote against interim storage and his 2002 vote against the repository. No mention is made of Bush's approval of the site as the nation's repository.

In 1987, Kerry supported an appropriations measure into which language singling out Yucca Mountain as the sole site for repository study was included. Nevada politicians who opposed the spending bill called it the "Screw Nevada" bill because it removed two other sites from the list for study and paved the way for the project.

The ad refers to letters Kerry had written in the 1990s in which he pushed for additional study and sought to expedite shipments to Nevada if the interim repository were approved.

Democrats, including Sen. Harry Reid, called the ad a desperate move by the Bush-Cheney campaign.

"It's amusing that somebody who is so strongly in support of bringing the nation's nuclear waste to Nevada would even be bringing this issue up," said Sean Smith, Kerry's spokesman in Nevada. "It really is an insult to the voters of Nevada that they think they can pull the wool over their eyes and confuse them to the point that they could somehow forget that George Bush is the one working overtime to bring this to Nevada."

The Bush campaign said the ad serves as a check to what it sees as Kerry's attempt to distort his record and run a "one-issue campaign in Nevada."

"We believe that it is critical that voters understand his real record on Yucca Mountain," said Tracey Schmitt, Western battleground spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney campaign. "Nuclear waste disposal is an important decision, and Nevadans deserve a leader who makes a decision on the facts and the evidence with consistency and clarity, rather than election year politics."

Veteran ad man and political consultant Billy Vassiliadis said he thinks the spot will resonate with voters unless the Kerry campaign responds appropriately.

"Bush hasn't been able to make any more headway here," Vassiliadis said of Nevada, which is polling as a toss-up between the two candidates. "The ceiling he's been bumping up against is the nuclear waste issue."

Vassiliadis, a Democrat, said he thinks the Kerry campaign should launch an ad "right away," explaining what Vassiliadis sees as clear differences between the candidates. He suggested the Kerry campaign use both of Nevada's senators to back Kerry up on his voting record.

Democratic Sen. Harry Reid has been vouching for Kerry on Yucca Mountain, and Republican Sen. John Ensign said in a recent television interview show that Kerry is a better candidate than Bush solely on the issue of Yucca Mountain.

"The campaign should exploit Senator Ensign," Vassiliadis said.

Republican strategist Sig Rogich said the Yucca commercial effectively highlights a theme the national campaign is using: "There's what Kerry says, and then there's what Kerry does."

"I think this is a terrific example of John Kerry saying one thing in one state to try to win votes and saying another in another state," Rogich said.

The ad mentions a letter Kerry wrote to speed shipment of waste from Massachusetts to Nevada.

"You can't run away from your voting record," Rogich said. "John Kerry has voted on more than a half dozen occasions to screw Nevada."

When Kerry was in Las Vegas this month, he repeated that he would stop the project if elected. In an interview, he said his 1987 vote cleared the way for studying a repository at Yucca Mountain and that his subsequent votes against the dump came because he grew skeptical of the science behind the project after studies came back.

When Bush was in Las Vegas earlier this month, he said he lived up to his promise to base the decision on science and said he would stand by decisions made by the courts and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Kerry campaign in Nevada has been focusing efforts to counter the swift boat veterans ad that questions his military service during the Vietnam War.

A response to that independent group's ad, paid for by the Democratic National Committee, starts running today in Nevada. Also today, another of Kerry's swift boat crew mates is scheduled to campaign in Las Vegas on his behalf.

"Frankly, that they would go and play this card so early, still in August, shows they're the ones who are reactive," the Kerry campaign's Smith said. "They're the ones who are defensive. They're the ones who are worried about how this state is going."

While Kerry is not on the air with a Yucca Mountain ad, the political action committee MoveOn.org is running a 30-second spot in Nevada, blaming the repository solely on Bush.

"George Bush misled Nevada," the ad states. "After promising Governor (Kenny) Guinn he would veto legislation making Yucca Mountain a nuclear dump, George Bush personally approved the disposal of radioactive waste in Nevada."

When Bush was a candidate in 2000, he issued a statement promising to base any decision on Yucca Mountain on "sound science, not politics." He made a similar pledge to Guinn in a letter after taking office but never promised he would veto a decision making Yucca Mountain the repository.

The New York Times on Monday pushed for deep geologic burial of nuclear waste and supported the science of Yucca Mountain despite July's decision by a federal appeals court that said the Environmental Protection Agency's radiation protection standard of 10,000 years is insufficient for the burial of waste.

The Times asked Congress to rewrite the standards but closed saying: "Congress will no doubt be reluctant to tackle the issue in an election year, especially since Senator John Kerry and other Democratic leaders, pandering shamelessly for the electoral votes of the battleground state of Nevada, have pledged to block Yucca."

Reid discounted the Times editorial and said the paper has a history of supporting the repository.