McCain Wages Negative TV Ad Campaign Against Obama
Obama's campaign spends more, is less negative
The major-party presidential nominees continued to dump record amounts of money into television advertising, spending more than $28 million last week alone, according to an analysis by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project, which is affiliated with the school's political science department.
And, the survey found, with just weeks to go before the election, nearly 100 percent of GOP nominee John McCain's TV ads aired last week were negative.
In comparison, 34 percent of Democratic nominee Barack Obama's ads last week were negative.
To date, according to survey director Ken Goldstein, 73 percent of McCain's ads have been negative, a rate that's 10 percent higher than that of George Bush's re-election campaign in 2004.
Goldstein also noted that the Democratic National Committee, which in 2004 aired "a significant number of negative ads," has been "largely silent" this year. "Obama has his own message, and he's getting it out through his own campaign," Goldstein said. "Because of Obama's huge fundraising totals, the DNC doesn't have to make up the difference in advertising between the two candidates."
Last week, Obama spent $17.44 million and directed about half of that to the battleground states of Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. McCain spent a total of $10.85 million last week on television ads and dedicated just over $6.5 million to the Midwest battleground states. Both candidates also advertised heavily in Colorado, Florida, and Virginia.
Obama last week dumped more than $2.2 million in television advertising in Florida alone, more than triple McCain's spending in the Sunshine State. The $2 million plus that Obama spent in Virginia last week dwarfed McCain's $547,000 TV investment there, and the Democratic nominee easily outspent his opponent in all the contested states.
Reader Comments
McCain/Palin
They are really dispicasble as they incite fear, rage,and hate across the country at their rallies. The T.V. ads, the flyers, and the T.V. ads by the Republican National Committee and Let Freedom Ring ought to have been banned by the T.V> networks. They have "way crossed the lines of acceptable campaigning. The latest rant about a Paslestian professor at Columbia University and the insidious LeT Freedom Ring T.V. ad about Barack's re;ltionship with children is slanderous and they should be sues along with CNN for running the ads!!!!!The air is thick with Karl Rove nastiness here in PA!!!!!!
Clawing their way to the White House
McCain/Palin will claw their way to the White House, they will do/say just about anything. It deems very personal for them -- when it should be about the Country and it's people.
I am sick and tired of their faces - it is so FAKE.
Negative ads are common for Republicans
We expected and knew this would happen but not to the extent that McCain and Palin are rsponsible for...encouraging crowds by using dangerous rhetoric and inciting them. I was shocked to see McCain encouraging the crowd to call Obama a Terrorist and worst---Palin encouraging and laughing with the crowd when they started yelling "Kill him, Kill him!" That is going too far. These swift boat tacitcs are obviously ones used by Karl Rove and for McCain, who promised a clean campaign, this is abominable and inexcusable. If McCain loses the race he will have no one else to blame but himself and the pit bull he hired and trained. The damage he has done, he will not be able to erase in the next 24 days. What a shame.
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