McCain Outspending Obama on TV in Key Battleground States

Submitted by Simon Rosenberg on 8/19/08
Simon Rosenberg's picture

Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central has a new post up on the adspend disparities this summer, and where each campaign is buying.

The analysis raises some interesting questions. 1) Do Democrats need to reevaluate their assumption that they will hold a significant fundraising advantage in the fall? 2) Can the Obama campaign afford to stay on the air in unconventional battlegrounds like Alaska and Indiana while the larger more traditional battlegrounds tighten up?

While a great deal has been written about the lessening impact of TV, I think the McCain campaign is demonstrating its lingering power and influence. What is the McCain campaign other than a series of TV ads and videos (that then get played again and again on TV)? Their candidate has receded. They have been speaking through a much more reliable set of messages - edited video, which unlike their candidate, doesn't have that nasty habit of getting way off message. And it has worked - the race has tightened now, and we appear headed into the two Conventions pretty close to tied.

As we look forward to the VP picks of both parties I get the sense that given the way the McCain campaign is being run now, they will attempt to pick a new spokesman for their campaign - someone good looking, telegenic, articulate. Their current spokesman, McCain, has, let us say, lots of limitations. So let him be that vague presence at the end of the ads, show up for the debates and Convention heavily scripted, and let the new guy do a great deal of the heavy lifting.

Comments

vanity

Submitted by Richard Grayson on 8/19/08.

It is vanity that has caused Sen. Obama and the Democratic party and his campaign to waste money on ads in Alaska, North Dakota, Montana, etc. And vanity has always been our candidate's main weakness, one he has admitted. Having just finished reading "Millennial Makeover," I found it somewhat convincing but also sanguine and short-sighted. The Millennials, for all their vaunted superiority over us horrible Baby Boomers and the worthless Gen Xers, is incredibly vain. They have unwarranted self-esteem, as any teacher of today's college students can tell you.

Last evening I had dinner in Manhattan with three other liberals of my generation, all of whom will vote for Sen. Obama. All of us are convinced he will lose. Listening to the Democratic voters interviewed in Ohio on national public radio this morning makes me even more firm in my belief that the election is already lost.

Perhaps it is not too late, but when I read the NDN blog, I sense premature triumphalism, and so your post here is the first sign I've really seen that reality is setting in. Perhaps it is not too late. But for those of us who really want a Democratic President, the current situation is very dire, and even more because those in charge of the campaign do not seem to get that.