Most expensive TV campaign ad goes for emotions
Spot features Bush with teen whose mom died on 9/11
By Judy Keen and Mark Memmott, USA TODAY

The most expensive TV ad buy of the presidential campaign shows President Bush consoling a teenage girl whose mother died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11.

The ad, created by the conservative Progress for America Voter Fund, will run until the election on cable stations and in nine key states at a cost of $14.2 million, said the group’s president, Brian McCabe. …

Progress for America Voter Fund’s eight previous ads have been a mix of attacks aimed at Sen. John Kerry and positive ads on Bush’s record. …

McCabe said his group has spent $24.8 million on TV ads, including “Ashley’s Story.” The new ad will be buttressed by a Web site …. E-mails, automated phone calls and 2.3 million brochures will go to voters. …

The fund’s ad spending since both parties’ conventions has exceeded that of other independent pro-Bush groups. … Progress for America has also, in recent weeks, outspent two of its most prominent liberal rivals. The Media Fund and MoveOn PAC, two anti-Bush groups, have spent about $1.5 million each since Labor Day to run ads in key states.