Bush Advertising Planners Ready for Fall Campaign

THE Bush campaign said Tuesday that two political veterans - former White House aide Mitch Daniels and attack advertising expert Roger Ailes - will be giving advice as it prepares for the bruising fall campaign.

Mr. Daniels will have a formal role, advising the political advertisers. "He'll be primarily working with the ad group and helping them with their campaign themes and messages," said Tony Mitchell, the campaign's deputy press secretary.

Mr. Ailes's expected role was less clear. Two campaign officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Ailes would step up his current role of providing advice casually.

Ailes himself muddied the waters, saying in one interview that he would be "helping on an ad hoc basis," and then calling a reporter back to say emphatically that he would have no role at all - that he was "out of this campaign."

Ailes, a close friend of both President Bush and incoming White House chief of staff James Baker III, has worked for Republican presidential campaigns dating back to Richard Nixon in 1972. Four years ago, his most notable Bush ads included photos of then-Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis sitting awkwardly in a tank and pictures of prisoners walking through revolving doors.

The ads sought to portray the Massachusetts governor as weak on defense issues and soft on crime.