NYT: Obama’s Ad Effort Swamps McCain and Nears Record

[usregimechange]

PHILADELPHIA — Senator Barack Obama is days away from breaking the advertising spending record set by President Bush in the general election four years ago, having unleashed an advertising campaign of a scale and complexity unrivaled in the television era.

With advertisements running repeatedly day and night, on local stations and on the major broadcast networks, on niche cable networks and even on video games and his own dedicated satellite channels, Mr. Obama is now outadvertising Senator John McCain nationwide by a ratio of at least four to one, according to CMAG, a service that monitors political advertising. That difference is even larger in several closely contested states.

The huge gap has been made possible by Mr. Obama’s decision to opt out of the federal campaign finance system, which gives presidential nominees $84 million in public money and prohibits them from spending any amount above that from their party convention to Election Day. Mr. McCain is participating in the system. Mr. Obama, who at one point promised to participate in it as well, is expected to announce in the next few days that he raised more than $100 million in September, a figure that would shatter fund-raising records.

“This is uncharted territory,” said Kenneth M. Goldstein, the director of the Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin. “We’ve certainly seen heavy advertising battles before. But we’ve never seen in a presidential race one side having such a lopsided advantage.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/18/us/politics/18ads.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1224302070-D0fXbrNd43hhQZrx1mmITw


On that note, shall we donate a bit more?

[BeyondGeography]

1. All that money and Obama still can't close the deal

:sarcasm:

[Lifelong Protester]

2. Absolutely! See my post urging Du to make that challenge

Sorry to say that most folks will need to see these pro-Obama ads a LOT OF TIMES to counteract the hate-spewers, and they need $$$ to do that.

[Jennicut]

3. According to Faux news, its "unfair" and he is "stealing the election" with his ads

but it was fine when Rethugs did it. Nice to see them getting a taste of their own medicine and Obama is doing it with huge amounts of small donors not bigwigs like the Rethugs.

[4lbs]

7. Gee, where are all the big money Republican fat cats to donate heavily to the RNC and their 527s?

I guess they lost all their money on Wall Street a month ago....

[4lbs]

9. For the last two weeks, I've been seeing 3 or 4 Obama ads every night during primetime.

They often run during the hours of 8:00pm to 1:30am which would also include the late night news and talk shows like Letterman, Leno, O'Brian, Kimmel, and Ferguson.

[Wetzelbill]

4. I saw one here in Arizona a few minutes ago

He's looking to completely overwhelm McCain. Brilliant.

[calmblueocean]

5. This is going to become a talking point. Remind your wingnut friends this is the market in action.

They're going to say, "He's buying the election!"

You can get into a discussion about the virtues of public financing with them if you want, but I think the shortest way to end that argument is to say, "What? I thought you believed in the free market. Or do you only believe in it when Republicans are winning?"

[Frances]

6. McCain has Fox news all day and night every day

Obama (and the grassroots) are just trying to even things out.

[Thrill]

8. McCain better be lucky. He's running against someone that isn't negative

or his ass would be down 20 points. If I had that type of money, I would destroy him. The ads would be very hard hitting.

[WheelWalker]

10. Neeeeed....... Give....... Nowwwwww......

[Liberal_in_LA]

11. I saw several tonight.. The one with McCain is saying "I voted with Bush 90% of the time"

And the one with McCain blinking and smirking during the 3rd debate.