"Halliburton," the hard-hat guy repeats glumly.
David Davis, a political science professor at the University of Toledo, said all the advertising has the same motive: to sway undecided voters and to spur the faithful to show up on Election Day. But he noted that advertising can do only so much in a political campaign. Organizational work such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, as well as day-to-day developments in the campaign count, too, Davis said.
Indeed, the ad barrage raises an obvious question: Is anyone being persuaded by all of this?
In some ways, it is almost irrelevant in Toledo. Ruvolo acknowledges there is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy driving the air wars here: Both sides feel they have to have ads on the air simply because the other guy has his ads on the air. "It is kind of an arms race," he said, a bit sheepishly.
Toledoans interviewed in random encounters on downtown streets generally express fatigue -- and a bit of bewilderment -- about what they're seeing on their TV screens. Walking into the Lucas County courthouse on a sunny fall afternoon, James King, 64, an executive with a health management company, offered the jaded view. "We're kind of sick of them," he said. "It seems like they've been going on forever. I really think it's turning everyone off. When you see as many negative ads as we've seen, you have to believe that it's turning more people off than getting people excited about the election."
King described himself as "a ticked-off conservative" who is leaning toward Kerry. But his choice wasn't shaped by any messages he has picked up from a few thousand political ads. "I'm alarmed at what has happened to the conservative agenda under this president," he said. "The deficit is a disaster. I deplore this war. The government has gotten bigger, not smaller. [Bush] has injured the party and its ideals."
Over on Adams Street, Najie Olive, the owner of Ranya's restaurant, still is not sure which way he is voting. The ads, he said, have not been especially helpful. "It's pretty much tit for tat," he said. "It's like a teeter-totter. They just keep swinging back and forth. . . . I guess I haven't really become tired of it. I'm just immune to it."
A block away, by a statue of native son William McKinley, the assassinated 25th president, teacher Rick Buss was asked whether he can remember any of the TV commercials he has seen. Buss, 54, thinks hard for a moment, holding his hand to his forehead. "Oh, boy," he said finally, stumped. "There's just so many of them that they kind of blur together. The average person can't differentiate who's saying what. It's very confusing."
In fact, the most memorable ad for Sara Agocs, 25, has been "the one President Bush did attacking John Kerry's service in Vietnam. It seemed very unfair to me." Informed that the ad was aired by an independent group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and not the Bush campaign, Agocs seems surprised.
"See, I didn't know that," she said. "All these independent agencies. I don't know what's coming from who."
Yet even if the sources of the ads and the messages are somewhat indistinct, Buss and Agocs can identify the general themes each side is promoting -- that Kerry (according to the Bush campaign) has taken inconsistent positions on many issues and thus cannot be trusted, and that Bush (according to Kerry) has mismanaged the war in Iraq and the economy and does not deserve another four years.
It's not much, but both sides hope it's enough come Election Day.
