A local GOP group will use billboards, cable TV and newspaper ads in an effort to highlight their differences with Democrats this campaign season.

The Republicans of Spokane County -- which is not to be confused with the official Spokane County Republican Party, although it often is -- will spend about $20,000 on the campaign, chairman Kent Clausen said today.

The first salvo in the campaign actually came this summer, when the group bought a full-page ad in The Spokesman-Review to tout some of the historical highlights of the GOP, like being the party of Lincoln, of voting rights for African-Americans and women's suffrage.

Recently they paid for a billboard on Division Street urging "vote responsible, vote Republican", and will follow up with commercials on cable television channels contrasting the two party's approach to economic issues, plus an ad in the Pacific Northwest Inlander that will discuss trends in job creation and unemployment under the Clilnton, Bush and Obama administrations.

It's designed to counter what Clausen and other members of the group believe are misconceptions about the party, and portray it in a "positive light." They don't intend to attack specific candidates.

This might strike one as a fairly basic strategy, one for which a group could go to RepublicanCampaigns.com and order up some ready-made designs and verbiage. Not so, said Clausen.

"We didn't attempt to find something off-the-shelf," he said. "We've created it ourselves."

To see a copy of the full-page ad in The Spokesman-Review, click on the link below.

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