Obama Makes First TV Ad Buy

[Pangloss]

We got our first indication this week of where Obama will be spending those hundreds of millions of dollars he'll have, being the first presidential candidate not to accept public funds and spending limits. He made a television ad buy in 18 battleground states, 14 of which were won by George Bush in 2004. The ads are even running in states like Alaska, Montana, North Carolina, and North Dakota, described in this article as "perennial Republican strongholds".

 

It'll be interesting to see if the advertising hits a saturation point, where it's no longer effective, or even becomes counter-productive.

 

In a related note, FactCheck has a problem with one aspect of the 60-second spot:

 

The ad talks about laws that Obama "passed," but in fact, he sponsored only one of the three bills mentioned and cosponsored another. The third included provisions from some bills he'd sponsored earlier, but his name wasn't attached to the one that passed. And two of the three laws were accomplishments of the Illinois Legislature, not the U.S. Senate.

 

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obama_polishes_his_resume.html

Edited June 21, 2008 by Pangloss

[ecoli]

I think in a high profile election like this, TV ads don't make a whole lot of sense. It's not like he needs name exposure, and I think people are pretty familiar with his platform from debates.

 

I think his best bet, if he insists on running TV ads, is to try to prevent himself in a light that rids him of the Rev. Wright "scandal." Perhaps videos of him going to an all white church.

[tvp45]

I think in a high profile election like this, TV ads don't make a whole lot of sense. It's not like he needs name exposure, and I think people are pretty familiar with his platform from debates.

 

I think his best bet, if he insists on running TV ads, is to try to prevent himself in a light that rids him of the Rev. Wright "scandal." Perhaps videos of him going to an all white church.

 

But do edit the footage of the White ushers frisking him and hiding the collection plates.

[iNow]

It's not like he needs name exposure, and I think people are pretty familiar with his platform from debates.

 

I think you may be overestimating the scholar/academic level of people across the country. A great number of them still think he's a secret muslim who doesn't say the pledge of allegiance.

[Sisyphus]

I think in a high profile election like this, TV ads don't make a whole lot of sense. It's not like he needs name exposure, and I think people are pretty familiar with his platform from debates.

 

I think his best bet, if he insists on running TV ads, is to try to prevent himself in a light that rids him of the Rev. Wright "scandal." Perhaps videos of him going to an all white church.

 

I'd say anyone alert enough to be familiar with his platform knows the "scandal" isn't a scandal. But that's probably a minority, and he could probably benefit from familiarizing himself to voters on his own terms. Hell, "Obama antichrist" brings back 950,000 results on Google.

[Pangloss]

It might be interesting for historical purposes to gather all the smear about Obama floating around the Net over the next few months. All the Photoshops of him wearing explosive vests and turbans, etc.

[iNow]

I think it would be more interesting to talk about issues, and generally elevate the level of political discourse in our country away from such ridiculous immature nonsense, but that's just me.

[Pangloss]

Pardon me, I didn't mean collecting them in a discussion thread. I was thinking more along the lines of a web site.

[iNow]

I understand. My point remains the same though.

[ecoli]

I think you may be overestimating the scholar/academic level of people across the country. A great number of them still think he's a secret muslim who doesn't say the pledge of allegiance.

a TV ad isn't going to change these people's minds anyway.

[Pangloss]

Right, but a lot of those "secret muslim" followers are actually undecideds who are just being led around by the nose. If you fight that perception then you can scrape off the independent-minded people who thought there might be something to those claims, bringing them into reality and showing that stuff to be nonsense. You're right, you won't capture the hardcore Rush Limbaugh-listeners. But you'll get plenty of undecideds.

 

TV spots are all about undecided voters.

[iNow]

It also forces McCain to fight for areas that he may otherwise have considered his by default.

[Mr Skeptic]

For me personally, he lost more respect by breaking his promise of accepting public funds and spending cap, than he could ever make up with TV ads. Still, if he and his expert political staff decided to do it, its probably because they figure the extra money will help him more than the bad press will hurt him.

[iNow]

It depends on how you look at his promise. I put greater emphasis on his promise not to take money from large interests... people who would tell him things like, "We'll give you all these millions of dollars, but you have to vote this way... if you don't, we'll withdraw our support."

 

By accepting funds as he has, he is accountable to no single person or entity.

 

 

Also, the McCain camp really needs to be careful if they start attacking based on flip flopping. McCain has changed positions on countless (and MAJOR) issues, so it would be incredibly hypocritical to suggest that Obama's "smart funding move" is somehow worthy of their feces-based attack campaigns.

[CDarwin]

Right, but a lot of those "secret muslim" followers are actually undecideds who are just being led around by the nose. If you fight that perception then you can scrape off the independent-minded people who thought there might be something to those claims, bringing them into reality and showing that stuff to be nonsense. You're right, you won't capture the hardcore Rush Limbaugh-listeners. But you'll get plenty of undecideds.

 

TV spots are all about undecided voters.

 

TV spots are all about people who probably shouldn't be allowed to vote in the first place...

 

That's elitist of me, I suppose. Well, no, I'm quite sure that's elitist of me.

 

For me personally, he lost more respect by breaking his promise of accepting public funds and spending cap, than he could ever make up with TV ads. Still, if he and his expert political staff decided to do it, its probably because they figure the extra money will help him more than the bad press will hurt him.

 

I don't know, I should be the young, naive college student-politico, I suppose, but I just don't expect that much of politicians. Obama breaking a fairly minor promise or McCain being close to a lobbyist or two doesn't really phase me. Rhetoric doesn't match reality sometimes. It happens. Do we really expect that much more of ourselves?

[Mr Skeptic]

McCain has changed positions on countless (and MAJOR) issues,

 

I had asked about that previously, as I know little of past politics (I've only started paying attention to politics rather recently now that I can vote). I would sacrifice almost any attribute to elect an honest politician, but if both are the same in this respect, I'll stick with my original choice (Obama). The thing is I was only aware of Obama seemed to have broken a promise when it became convenient.

 

After looking up the details, the reason Obama gave for supporting public financing was to reduce the power of special interest groups. He left wiggle room in the explanation, but checked the "yes" on the questionnaire. He does seem to remain somewhat in the spirit of his original statement, but he quite skipped the part about aggressively pursuing an agreement.

 

I don't know, I should be the young, naive college student-politico, I suppose, but I just don't expect that much of politicians. Obama breaking a fairly minor promise or McCain being close to a lobbyist or two doesn't really phase me. Rhetoric doesn't match reality sometimes. It happens. Do we really expect that much more of ourselves?

 

Reminds me of one of my teachers who said we should behead a few of the most corrupt, and the problem would disappear almost instantly. Also reminds me of reading one of Socrates' comments that he'd be a politician but wasn't corrupt enough. The problem is that no one expects that much of politicians, and never has. I'd be all in favor of considering corruption a capital offense in some circumstances. If a guy wants to lead 300,000,000 Americans, is it really that much to demand some high standards?

 

Sorry, got carried away a bit there. Yeah, I don't think either of them is particularly more dishonest than your average politician.

[iNow]

After looking up the details, the reason Obama gave for supporting public financing was to reduce the power of special interest groups. He left wiggle room in the explanation, but checked the "yes" on the questionnaire. He does seem to remain somewhat in the spirit of his original statement, but he quite skipped the part about aggressively pursuing an agreement.

 

And how do we know this to be the case? It seems to me that it would be pretty easy for the McCain camp to simply ignore his calls so they could flog him publically for his decision.

 

As I mentioned above, though. When he made his comment, it was in the spirit of reducing the power of special interests (just as you said as well). It seems like he's sticking to that part of his promise, which has substantially greater impact than the "I checked a box" part of the promise.

 

Long story, short, though... He is a politician trying to get elected, and he made an executive decision which seems most likely to help him achieve that goal, despite any short-term costs to his image. If McCain had the same opportunity out there, he'd likely have made the exact same decision.