While the Swift Boat Vets followed up their first advertisement with the "Sellout" commercial, the Kerry campaign countered the Swift Boat claims with the introduction of their "Rassmann" advertisement, in which Vietnam veteran Jim Rassmann described the efforts of John Kerry to pull him from a river while under enemy fire. Rassman's account of his experience contradicted many of the claims of the Swift Vets in their "Any Questions" commercial, and thus aimed to undermine their credibility with the public. However, our examination showed that the "Rassmann" advertisement did not have a significant impact on either strengthening support for Kerry or diminishing support for Bush among members of our sample. As Figure 11 shows, the ad managed to hold onto individuals who said they were definitely voting for Kerry, but did not strongly increase the intensity of support among individuals who were less confident of their position.

The "Rassmann" ad's effect on support for Bush may have been even more important to the Kerry campaign. However, we found extremely limited movement in our sample between the pre- and post-tests. In the important independent group, there was practically no change in intended support for President Bush (Figure 11), nor was there much change in the intensity of voter support for him (Figures 11 and 12).

Overall, the effects of both the Swift Boat Vets' follow-up advertisement and the Kerry campaign counter-advertisement appear to pale in comparison to those of the first Swift Boat commercial. Why was the "Any Questions" ad so effective?

In addition to the pre-test/post-test examinations of voter preferences, we asked our sample a battery of questions on various aspects of the nineteen advertisements we tested from May to the end of August, including a measure of each ad's ability to catch respondents' attention.

"Any Questions" received the second-highest percentage of respondents saying it was attention-getting (Figure 13). Only the Bush campaign ad, "First Choice," which featured John McCain endorsing the president, scored higher. "Any Questions" scored highest in terms of those who strongly agreed the advertisement was attention-getting.