McCain Wages Negative TV Ad Campaign Against Obama

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.