Wednesday, November 14, 2007; A07

SCARING UP VOTES

It is a terrifying image stalking the subconscious of many Americans in the post-Sept. 11 world. And thanks to Tom Tancredo, the congressman from Colorado, Republican presidential candidate and anti-immigration crusader, it is now appearing on television sets across Iowa, with promises to expand to other states soon: A man in a hooded sweat shirt walks into a shopping mall, sets a heavy backpack beside a bench and walks away before it explodes.

Accompanying the shopping-mall scene (which is interspersed with images from terrorist bombings in Europe) is an opener from Tancredo himself, saying that "I approve this message because someone needs to say it," and then this voiceover, in an ominous-sounding baritone: "There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs. Islamic terrorists now freely roam U.S. soil, jihadists who froth with hate, here to do as they have in London, Spain, Russia. The price we pay for spineless politicians who refuse to defend our borders against those who come to kill."

That is followed by the sound of a loud explosion, and then these closing words on the screen: "Tancredo -- before it's too late."

That Tancredo is running in asterisk territory in presidential polls and being all but ignored as a single-issue candidate does not diminish the undeniable initial shock of the ad. Just as his campaign hoped, the ad has generated a flutter of attention for his flagging campaign and the issue it was built around, with Tancredo's allies in the immigration battle hailing him for his candor and others scorning the ad as cheap and blatant fearmongering. (The campaigns of three of Tancredo's chief rivals for the GOP nomination -- Mitt Romney, Rudolph W. Giuliani and John McCain -- all declined to comment on the ad.)

Lingering in the air after the imagined bomb detonates is this question: Is there a line to be crossed when it comes to campaign ads that prey on national security fears -- and if so, where does that line fall? Bowdoin College political scientist Michael Franz, who studies campaign ads, said there is a select but notorious lineage behind Tancredo's ad. With its imagined explosion, the ad most obviously invokes the infamous "Daisy" ad run by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 to stoke fears that electing his opponent, Barry Goldwater, could lead to nuclear war. More recently, there was President Bush's "wolves" ad in 2004, which criticized John Kerry for voting against intelligence funding with an image of a pack of wolves approaching the viewer and the line, "Weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm."

Bush faced only limited criticism for the wolves ad, but Franz predicted that Tancredo will face a considerable backlash for the shopping-mall ad, partly because his low standing in the polls will make the ad seem all the more opportunistic.

Tancredo campaign spokesman Alan Moore said yesterday that the campaign has been thrilled with the national attention that the ad has gotten, even as he conceded that it had been met with "mixed reviews."

"It's been pretty unbelievable. We're getting a great response," Moore said. "People are talking about it, and that's what we wanted to do. We wanted to start a dialogue . . . and say this is a real threat to national security. In the end, people are going to recognize [illegal immigration] as a threat to national security. I think we're going to accomplish what we set out to do."

As for the implications for Tancredo's campaign, Moore said: "The congressman puts it real well. He says that he's never run for an office to get the office. He is running to promote his beliefs, and the best way to do that is through an election."

-- Alec MacGillis

As the presidential road show hits Las Vegas this week for a Democratic debate, the bookmakers have already weighed in: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) is the odds-on favorite both to win her party's nomination and to go on to capture the White House next fall over former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

The smart money these days is being bet on the two New Yorkers as the odds grow longer for Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), both once deemed by Las Vegas to be more likely to win than they are now.

The odds set by various gambling Web sites vary, but the order generally does not. Clinton is judged the most likely to win the presidency, followed by Giuliani, then Obama. From there, it gets a little messier. Bookies have different assessments of the chances of McCain, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) and former senators John Edwards (D-N.C.) and Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), but group them in the same basic tier. Most sites then put New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. Joe Biden (Del.) on the Democratic side and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on the Republican side at about the same level, about 50-to-1 shots. The rest of the field, guys such as Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Reps. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), generally are brushed off at 100 to 1, or worse.

(Somewhere there's probably a Washington Post lawyer who would want us to note that we are not encouraging gambling. This information is being provided strictly for informational purposes. End of disclaimer.)

Probably no one inside the Beltway thinks Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) will win, but Sportsbook is giving him 6-to-1 odds, the same it gives Edwards and better than Romney. And even Dick Cheney is a 10,000-to-1 chance on Sportsbook. So it's true. Some people will bet on anything.

-- Peter Baker

Former publisher Judith Regan filed a $100 million lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. yesterday, saying Murdoch's political agenda to aid Republican presidential candidate and former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani sparked a campaign to destroy her reputation.

Regan says that a senior executive at News Corp., her former employer, asked her to lie to federal investigators about Bernard Kerik, who was Giuliani's police commissioner and had been her lover. The executive, court papers say, believed she had information about Kerik that could hurt Giuliani's campaign.

Kerik was indicted last week on charges including corruption and fraud.

Regan worked for HarperCollins Publishers LLC, a News Corp. subsidiary, until she was fired in December with more than two years left on her contract. News Corp. cited anti-Semitic remarks Regan allegedly made to a HarperCollins lawyer, according to her court papers. Regan disputes the allegation, saying it was "manufactured to create a pretext for Regan's termination and further undermine her credibility."

-- Associated Press