By Saundra Torry and Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 17, 1998; Page A01

The tobacco industry's unprecedented $40 million, eight-week radio and TV ad barrage to defeat the national tobacco bill is beginning to make a dent in the Senate debate at a crucial moment, some senators say.

As Senate Republicans headed today toward a closed-door showdown meeting on the bill, the enormous ad campaign, which seeks to portray the bill as a tax-and-spend measure, appears to have made an impact by emboldening the bill's opponents and, perhaps, by intensifying pressure on wavering senators, according to several senators and political consultants.

The broadcasting blitz, which began April 18, has hit local markets as far-flung as Montgomery, Ala., and Missoula, Mont. The nation's five major tobacco companies have purchased time in 30 to 50 markets each week, and on CNN nationally for the past three weeks, according to an industry spokesman. That campaign has been buttressed with three rounds of print ads in major national newspapers, including The Washington Post and USA Today, where full-page ads cost more than $63,000 each.

The industry "may have made some gains," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the bill's chief sponsor. "They're bound to, with the amount of money they're spending."

President Clinton was concerned enough in recent days to attack the ads as "a bunch of hooey" and assert that the industry is attempting to distract attention from its complicity in misleading the nation about the dangers of smoking.

Polls on public support for the bill are at odds, and senators, depending on their position, have cited the starkly different findings of various surveys. Overall, the mood in the Senate yesterday seemed subdued and uncertain.

This much is clear: The industry's effort to defeat the bill has been enormous. Now in its ninth week, the ad blitz has far surpassed other campaigns to defeat congressional action, including the well-known "Harry and Louise" campaign that helped kill the Clinton health plan in 1994 and cost the Health Insurance Association of America about $14 million. Sources familiar with the tobacco industry's strategy confirmed the $40 million figure.

An ad buy of that size in a few weeks rivals that of such giants as Toyota or Honda, who, according to a top ad executive, spend about $300 million a year on television spots.

The impact of the ads is harder to gauge, as debate on the complex bill has dragged into its fourth week. The measure, which would give the federal government broad control over tobacco products and raise the price of cigarettes by at least $1.10 per pack in the next five years, has become mired as the Senate has added tax cuts, anti-drug provisions and limits on attorneys fees. Today, the bitterly divided Republicans are scheduled to hold a private caucus to determine their course. While the politics cut across the usual divides, most conservatives oppose the bill and moderate Republicans tend to favor it.

McCain said he will urge fellow Republicans to force a final vote. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has not indicated what he wants in the way of action, though many senators believe that he could push the bill -- or a version of it -- to passage if he chose to.

One of the biggest questions is how it will play politically if Republicans -- who have received millions of dollars in tobacco contributions in recent years -- move to kill the legislation, which is favored by Democrats and public health advocates.

The findings of polls done for the White House and public health groups are at odds with GOP polls. Yesterday, a poll released by ENACT, a public health coalition, found registered voters supporting the bill by a 2-to-1 margin. The latest poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found similar support on the broader issue of the government's effort to rein in the tobacco industry.

But when Republican pollster Linda Divall asked voters whether supporters of the tobacco bill are mainly seeking to cut teen smoking or to get additional tax revenue, 69 percent said they were seeking tax revenue. Some GOP senators this week pounced on the poll as evidence that the public opposes the bill.

The theme of huge, new taxes to expand government has echoed for weeks in the industry's commercials. Its latest offering shows a Christmas tree in front of the Capitol, as a voice tells listeners, "It's the season of giving in Washington, but remember it's your taxes they're giving away."

The campaign has ranged far and wide, running, for instance, in 29 states this week. Industry spokesmen have declined to divulge the total cost or location of their ads.

But public health groups, surveying their members, found ads in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin. In Baltimore, the ads were on every network affiliate; in Atlanta, one popped up on the final episode of "Seinfeld," according to the American Cancer Society. Full-page ads ran in the Amsterdam News, an African American weekly in New York, and in the Argus Leader, a newspaper in North Dakota, according to the American Lung Association.

Republican political consultant Mike Murphy speculated that the strategy is "to go where the pressure points are," such as states where senators are up for reelection or Iowa, a key presidential primary state. In some states, Murphy said, the industry is trying to give cover to conservative senators who oppose the bill or force wavering senators to think there might "be a political price to pay for supporting higher taxes."

The White House disputes that the campaign has been that effective. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) dismissed the ads as unnecessary. "The American people never bought into the notion that this [bill] was just directed at stopping teenage smoking. They saw it for what it was: as tax-and-spend, pure and simple."

Staff writer John F. Harris contributed to this report.