9/11 images said inappropriate by voters

Will Lester

Mar 12, 2004 | Undecided voters, by a 2-1 margin, feel it was inappropriate for President Bush's re-election campaign to use images from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in a television commercial, according to a poll released Friday.

Among those who have not yet decided who they will support in the November presidential election, or say they could change their minds, 52 percent thought the ad was inappropriate while 27 percent said it was appropriate, according to the results of the National Annenberg Election Survey.

The Bush political ad, which has a generally positive tone, shows brief footage of the remnants of the buildings that were attacked and footage of firefighters carrying flag-draped remains from the wreckage.

Overall, the poll found that 55 percent of those surveyed felt that including the footage of the damage was inappropriate, and about that many found the footage of the firefighters inappropriate. Two-thirds of Republicans said the ad was appropriate, and almost three-fourths of Democrats said it was inappropriate.

Groups most likely to call the ad "very inappropriate'' were blacks, liberals, those with incomes under $35,000 and those 65 and over.

The Bush campaign began airing the ads in early March and quickly heard criticism from some relatives of victims of the terrorist attacks. Other relatives of victims said the ad was handled properly.

The poll of 1,265 adults was taken March 5-11 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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