BILL MOYERS: Let's go beyond the candidates for a moment. There's a conservative group that's out with a scary ad about a nuclear 9/11.

MALE VOICE IN TV AD: While we browse shop windows for the perfect item, others browse vulnerable nuclear facilities for the ultimate weapon. The 9/11 Commission told us that terrorists can buy or steal weapons for a nuclear bomb. Yet Washington hasn't done enough to protect us from the threat of terrorists getting nuclear weapons. Ask how your candidate will search for loose nuclear materials around the world to prevent a nuclear 9/11.

BILL MOYERS: How do you read that?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: And this is one illustration. I can read that ad by saying, "That's a strong indictment of the status quo. Don't elect anybody that's held power." Or I can read that ad to say, "It really advantages the people who have in the status quo-- have taken the toughest positions." Depends on the assumptions you put in the ad.

One of the things we know about communication is that it isn't in the message. Communication exists-- the meaning of communication exists in an intersection between what's in that ad, what's in the head of the audience member, and what's in the context around it. An audience member could bring to that ad the associations that you're offering. And the ad, then, for that person, has that meaning. A person doesn't bring that association, that set of associations, doesn't interpret the ad that way.

BILL MOYERS: Governor Michael Dukakis when he was the democratic candidate for president in 1988. The Willie Horton ad that-- indicted him for letting-- a convicted murderer loose, an alleged murderer loose and for killing again.

NARRATOR: Bush and Dukakis on crime. Bush supports the death penalty for first degree murderers. Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. One was Willie Horton, who murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him 19 times. Despite a life sentence, Horton received ten weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend. Weekend prison passes: Dukakis on crime.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: The narrative underlying the Horton story was an extremely powerful narrative that led people to say, for example, that-- that he went on to kill again.

BILL MOYERS: Right.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: When there was no evidence that he was actually the killer in the first place. He was convicted as an accomplice to a felony murder. We fill out narratives all the time with our own fears and our own associations. Do we have, as a country, or does a portion of the country, have fears that can be tapped by advertising, that are unsavory, that would not-- would not work well if they were exposed to public scrutiny? Yes, we do.

The the concern I think that you're expressing is that in that campaign, the democrats did not find a way to respond to that. And did not find a way to discuss the racial element in that exchange intelligently.

I think as Barack Obama emerges as a possible democratic party nominee, there's a great deal of concern in the country, in general, about the kind of campaign that is going to be run. And whether it's a campaign that will confront and dispatch our fears and our stereotypes. The dark underside of some part of the national consciousness.

And that we will transcend that as a result. Or well-- whether it will be a campaign or plight of the worst of us. For I suspect, that's why you are more likely to feature that. It's out of your worry about that. The largest question is would someone who didn't have that worry feature that? Would somebody who has stereotypic fears of a black man emerging as a perspective nominee respond to that? And the answer to that question is I don't know.

BILL MOYERS: Why would a group want to bring up now, this early, these scare tactics to frighten us this early?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: We have almost constantly since 9/11 had something on the air to increase the likelihood that we were reminded of the terrorist threat. Or of the importance of the response in Iraq. The issue advocacy advertising on that-- in that arena has been strong and clear and highly redundant. The reason is that people who share the ideological assumption that says that is the central issue of the age.

That the war was the right thing to do. The war in Iraq, specifically, was the right thing to do. Want to ensure that the country doesn't lose track of that as a central issue. And they're in somewhat of a-- a difficult situation from a persuasion standpoint. Because to the extent that the war in Iraq is less violent, there are less causalities for the US and it moves off the front pages, that is their argument succeeds. Things appear to be going better.

The public's less conscious of it because it's seeing less, hearing less and other issues from to the fore. They wanna bring that issue back to the fore. But, also tell us things are going well. They wanna persuade us it was a war worth fighting.

BILL MOYERS: A coalition of liberal groups have come up with-- with their own ad that also invokes Iraq. It's the ad-- in this ad, a veteran back from Iraq comes home, has a child and she becomes the protagonist in the ad.

FEMALE VETERAN IN AD: John McCain says it's ok with him if the United States spends the next 1000 years in Iraq. That's some commitment to the Iraqi people Sen, McCain. This is my little guy. He was born a year after I came home from Iraq. What kind of commitment are you making to him? How about 1000 years of affordable healthcare. or 1000 years of keeping American safe? Can we afford that Sen. McCain? Or have you already promised to spend trillions … in Baghdad.

BILL MOYERS: My read on that is that they're trying to anticipate McCain, the war hero, and the supporter of the war and the surge, by tying him to Iraq and Iraq to the economy. Is that the story you take away from it?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: That's part of the story. But, there also is an attempt in this ad to take the biographical strengths of Senator McCain and that he is arguing, his supporters are arguing, and to suggest that perhaps with that military background and with that position he has taken on the military and his forecast of a longer term presence-- in Iraq, and make that a liability to suggest that perhaps he is too eager to be using military force there.

And it's a kind of use that the country doesn't want. That's always a risk when somebody positions their biography in a military past.

BILL MOYERS: So we have this conservative group that's advertising fear and scariness. And then you have a liberal group that's out with an ad-- that is trying to tie-- McCain to the war and the war to the economy here at home.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: And the interesting thing about issues is that we tend to think that they are stable. So here's the Iraq war, and here is the economy. But the Iraq war is implications for the economy. Iraq war features one set of credentials in a candidate. Economy features another set of credentials. If you can take the Iraq war where your opponent has the net advantage and transform it into an economic issue, where your party has a net advantage, you've ultimately reframed the issue in a way that helps your party.

Barack Obama, very importantly in his speeches, makes the argument that the Iraq war has caused these billions of dollars that could have been used for these social programs. This is his issue agenda. It could be carried out with that funding, if it were not the Iraq war. That's a direct attempt to take that issue and transform it into a centerpiece of a traditional Democratic appeal.

BILL MOYERS: And there's another conservative group called Freedom Watch organized by friends of George W. Bush that's also trying to make support of the war-- a positive in this build up to the fall election.

MALE IRAQ VET TV AD: I believe we're making progress in the war in Iraq and stabilizing the country there. I would go back to Iraq if I could. It's that important because if Iraq isn't stable then it will be a breeding ground for terrorists. I'm proud to have been a Marine. To hear Congress talk about surrendering really makes me angry. We're dealing with the safety of our country, of our sacred United States of America. It's really important that we're victorious.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Victory versus surrender is a frame. And when Senator McCain in his stump speeches uses the word surrender, he is gaining reinforcement from this ad campaign. There's-- there's a synergy created between the two.

BILL MOYERS: I was gonna ask you. What is the purpose of running this? Is to create that synergy? To reinforce his views?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: If you say that only one way to see the alternative that we have right now. It's either victory or surrender, then there is no place for the democratic position articulated by Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. It can't be victory. It must be surrender. They would argue that it is neither. It is the best use of United States resources in the interest of Iraq for the country to pull the troops out on a schedule that is responsible. Victory? Surrender? No, there is this alternative path. And what's important about the ad is that some people have a unique credibility to offer messages. If a returning veteran, in a wheelchair, tells you he would go back if he could, and he frames it this way, he is making a statement that can't be made in as credible a fashion by a general or a President or a candidate who isn't there.

This is a direct appeal to the personal credibility drawn out of his life. If the same appeal to personal credibility is made by the woman with the child in the ad who says, "I came back and this is what I want for my country." This is a battle of the dueling veterans with an alternative experience of Iraq translating it back to the American people into a different projected future.

BILL MOYERS: But, I'm still puzzled as to why-- these are issue groups. Why now? Everybody's attention is focused on Ohio and Texas, and whether the democrats choose Obama and Clinton. And these ads seem premature to talk about Iraq. We don't know where Iraq, as an issue, will be three months, four months, five months from now. Why now? What's the strategy?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: As people vote, they're asking what issues matter to me as a voter? And who's the person best qualified to address the issue in the way that I think is appropriate for the country? We tend to think that individuals just make up that-- their minds all by themselves. It's a personal conversation. But, it's not.

It's a conversation that we have without even knowing it with the network news headlines, with the headlines in our morning paper, with what we are learning in our real lives. That's particularly important on the economic front when gas prices are going up. The economy becomes more important as that happens.

But, also, it happens in relationship to the advertising. All of us are adjusting our sense of what the most important issues to us are. This is a contest about Iraq as an issue, and if it becomes a central issue for you how you should see it. On one side, see it is a tragic loss of resources that could have been put into domestic affairs, important need for the country has. On the other hand, victory or surrender in the context of great threat.

BILL MOYERS: But what was interesting to me this week is that McCain, in attacking Obama repeatedly on the issue of the war and Al Qaeda-- McCain was assume-- he seemed to be assuming that his opponent in the Fall will be Barack Obama. It was almost as if in McCain's mind and strategy, Hillary Clinton didn't exist. Did-- did you see that?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Yes. And President Bush did the same thing when, in his press conference on Thursday, he offered, without mentioning Senator Obama's name, the statement that we wouldn't want to be legitimizing tyrants such as Raul Castro by meeting with them and having a picture of the President of the United States taken with-- taken with them. That is the McCain position against Obama.

It is also the Hillary Clinton position against Obama. And so, you have the President of the United States coming in, in order to shore up a line of argument that works against the presumed, in their case, the person they're presuming is going to be the Democratic nominee.

BILL MOYERS: These ads are all smooth and slick, attempting to entice emotions and money. And on both fronts, they seem to be succeeding.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Some more so than others. And we shouldn't lose track of the fact that advertising doesn't exist in isolation. People are drawing material from news into advertising. From what they are talking with their friends about, into advertising. And from the front pages, into advertising. To create a composite message.

People often tell us that they saw things in ads that weren't in ads at all. They actually saw it in news. To the extent that something is important to you, you're more likely to remember it in an ad. So you and I don't have the same experience, seeing the same set of ads. The complexity of this is enormous. Out of it comes the composite image of someone who needs to answer the

BILL MOYERS: Should you vote for me? Yes. Will I be a great president? Yes. Now, feel that conviction and cast that vote.

BILL MOYERS: There was an interesting appearance by her in-- Youngstown, Ohio, earlier this week, when she was given a pair of boxing gloves. And she turned that into a symbol, right?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: The problem with boxing gloves is it's the wrong kind of fighting. First, a woman's naturally disadvantaged the minute you go to a boxing metaphor. But more importantly, that moves into a game reference point, not to the point that she highlights in one of her ads, in which she features the fighter theme, but she showed her identification with people who came back from the National Guard. And it identifies her with her issue position, fighting to get them benefits.

BILL MOYERS: Some people told me they saw boxing gloves in an ad. But they didn't appear in an ad. They appeared in the news. Is that what you're--

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: That what we're talking about. They-- people bring, from all of the messages in their entire environment, a composite sense, and then misremember where they learned it. Often, we attribute effects-- effects to advertising that aren't advertising at all. They actually were exposure to news.

BILL MOYERS: All right. So we're just a few days-- this is the last question. We're just-- we're just a few days away now from what-- maybe it's not super duper Tuesday, but it is still Super Tuesday for the Democrats in particular. What are the images we're likely to see over the weekend?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: The images you're likely to see over the weekend are-- Senator Obama, mass rallies, enthusiastic partisans who are endorsing his message of hope and optimism. Hillary Clinton tried to make this a very specific contest about positions on issues and about experience. Judgment, Obama. Experience, Clinton.

BILL MOYERS: Stories matter, including short stories?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Stories matter, because we believe they tell us something fundamental about the person who will lead in unanticipated moments.

BILL MOYERS: Kathleen Hall Jamieson, thank you very much.