That's why we have to make sure this one is unsuccessful.
Most of that billion went into teevee advertising. This may be the last election where teevee is this prominent. Most people who are actually interested in politics get at least part of their information from non-teevee sources and that will continue. The old networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) are nothing but fluff and corporate ass-kissing. They haven't been relevant for a long time. The newer networks, Faux, CNN, and MSNBC are all partisan, so there is no point advertising there -- you're just preaching to the choir.
That leaves you with spreading your money across 279 channels, most of which seem to be playing Everybody Loves Raymond reruns, and those viewers really don't have much patience for a bunch of political ads.
OTOH, social networking, blogging, and regular old email are gaining in impact. And the oldest activity of all, GOTV, is a veritable fount of technological innovation. Granted much of that still boils down to phone banks and door hangers, but the technology is allowing campaigns to micro-target voters and really work the ones that need the most encouragement.
SO my dream is that Adelson and the Koch brothers sit down in November and look at how much they spent and what a waste it was, they may decide they aren't going to repeat that mistake the next time.
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