Obama Aired More Negative Ads Last Week

[Anonymous]

Interesting new study out on last week's ads. It provides data that run counter to my perceptions (and probably those of other DCUMs). However, the data should reassure Democrats who are concerned that Obama is not being aggressive enough in his advertising. The distribution of the ad buys is interesting, too.

Obama Aired More Negative Ads Last Week
Updated 12:55 p.m.
By Howard Kurtz
Despite perceptions that John McCain has spent more time on the attack, Barack Obama aired more negative advertising last week than did the Arizona senator, says a new study released today.

Seventy-seven percent of the Illinois Democrat's commercials were negative during the week after the Republican convention, compared to 56 percent of the spots run by McCain.

Ken Goldstein, who directed the study by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, based at the University of Wisconsin, says the pattern was a reversal from earlier months in which McCain's advertising was consistently more negative than Obama's.

"It suggests that the Sarah Palin pick and the newfound aggressiveness by MCain got into Obama's head a little bit," Goldstein says. "He was under great pressure to show some spine, be aggressive, fire back."

The study found Obama limiting his television buys to 17 states and McCain airing spots in 15. For all the talk of an expanded electoral map, both campaigns are concentrating their resources in the traditional battlegrounds, with just over half the money spent in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

"Shockingly, this race is going to come down to swing voters in the same swing states that decided the last two elections," Goldstein says.

All told, the study says, the campaigns poured $15 million into the ad wars last week -- they were virtually even in total spending -- but the figures revealed an important distinction. Obama, who has rejected public financing in favor of private fundraising, paid for 97 percent of his spots.

McCain, who is limited to an $84-million federal subsidy, financed 43 percent of his commercials, with the rest airing in conjunction with the Republican National Committee.

These "hybrid" spots allow McCain to retain control while the party foots much of the bill.

Obama spent the most money last week, $1.3 million, on Florida ads, nearly matched by the $1 million McCain spent there. McCain's most expensive state was traditionally Democratic Pennsylvania, where he spent $1.6 million to Obama's $948,000.

Obama was still on the air in Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, North Dakota and Montana, all states won by President Bush in the last two elections.

Interest-group advertising was marginal at $187,000, although that is expected to ramp up in the coming weeks. Three pro-Obama groups aired commercials -- the Service Employees International Union, Defenders of Wildlife and Planned Parenthood -- while Vets for Freedom ran spots on McCain's behalf.

[Anonymous]

I'm OK with negative ads at this point, as long as what they say are truthful.

I feel McCain's campaign has been a lot of unsubstantiated lies. Heck even Karl ROve said MCCain was going too far.

"McCain has gone in his ads one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test,"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/14/karl-rove-mccains-ads-hav_n_126280.html

I'm glad Obama is hitting back. If it is negative, then it has to be negative.

[jsteele]

There are two famous quotations that I think are fitting for this situation:

Abraham Lincoln: "If you don't stop lying about me I am going to start telling the truth about you."

Harry Truman, saying that his opponents thought he gave them hell: "I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell.”

McCain told a bunch of lies about Obama, so now Obama is telling the truth about McCain, and McCain thinks its hell.

[Anonymous]

Good ones, jsteele. Thanks for those.

One of my favorites--

Virginia Woolf: "If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people."