US: Twenty years ago President Ronald Reagan won re-election with the help of a commercial showing a menacing grizzly bear in a forest, representing the Soviet Union, while a voiceover asks: "Some say the bear is vicious and dangerous: isn't it as smart to be as strong as the bear?"
That commercial helped Mr Reagan fend off the challenge of Democrat Walter Mondale by depicting him as weak on defence, and now the Bush-Cheney campaign is seeking to do the same to Senator John Kerry.
A new campaign ad, held in reserve for months, creates a similar haunting image of danger, using wolves to represent terrorists while suggesting the Democrat would make America more vulnerable to attack. The commercial, to run in key states next week, shows a forest with shadows moving in the undergrowth, then zooms in on wolves on a hillside.
The voiceover states: "In an increasingly dangerous world, even after the first terrorist attack on America, John Kerry and the liberals in Congress voted to slash America's intelligence budget by $6 billion, cuts so deep they would have weakened America's defences. And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm."
The ad refers to the first bombing of the World Trade Centre in 1993. The spending cut Mr Kerry suggested was $1 billion over 10 years, the Kerry campaign stated, while Republican Senator Porter Goss, now CIA director, pushed for even greater cuts in intelligence spending at the time.
Simultaneously the Democratic National Committee released a commercial featuring a soaring eagle and an ostrich with its head in the sand, meant to symbolise Mr Kerry and President Bush respectively.
"The eagle soars high above the Earth," says a voice. "The ostrich buries its head in the sand. The eagle can see everything for miles around. The ostrich? Can't see at all. The eagle knows when it's time to change course. The ostrich stands in one place. Given the choice, in these challenging times, shouldn't we be the eagle again?"
While Democrats sought to depict the Bush campaign as "crying wolf", they got some support from Republican Senator John McCain, a supporter of Mr Bush.
Mr McCain said he disagreed with Mr Bush's assertion last week that Mr Kerry had a "fundamental misunderstanding" of the war on terrorism.
Recent polls show a majority of Americans say that concern over attack is the top issue and that Mr Bush is better equipped to fight the war on terrorism.
This led Mr Bush to redraft his stump speech yesterday to hit harder at Mr Kerry who, according to the latest AP poll, has edged ahead by three points among likely voters with 10 days to go before polling on November 2nd.
Mr Kerry "considers the war on terror primarily a law enforcement and intelligence gathering operation", said Mr Bush yesterday in speeches to crowds in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, the three battleground states which account for a quarter of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
"His top foreign policy adviser has questioned whether it's even a war at all, saying that's just a metaphor, like the war on poverty. I've got news. Anyone who thinks we are fighting a metaphor does not understand the enemy we face and has no idea how to win the war and keep America secure."
In a voice heavy with sarcasm, Mr Bush defended the fighting in Iraq by asking: "If Zarqawi and his associates were not busy fighting American forces in Iraq, does my opponent think the would be peaceful citizens of the world? Does he think they'd be opening a small business somewhere?"
Mr Kerry campaigned yesterday in Nevada and Colorado seeking to increase support from women voters by accusing Mr Bush of letting women down by allowing the gap between pay and health care to widen. These are two states the Democrats hope to "steal" from Republicans in a race where as many as 10 states are too close to call.