$40 million spent to tout candidates on Iowa TV: Half a mil for each delegate; Obama leads spending

[DeepModem Mom]

CNN: $40 million spent to tout candidates on Iowa TV
By Alexander Mooney
CNN Washington bureau


Sen. Barack Obama leads all candidates in TV ad spending during this election cycle.

(CNN) -- Iowa's 2.3 million eligible voters have been bombarded with close to $40 million worth of political ads on television this cycle -- more than three times the amount spent there in 2004. That works out roughly to about $17 per voter, between $150 and $200 per expected caucus-goer, and nearly $500,000 per each of the state's 82 delegates in a contest that -- unlike 2004 -- is wide open on both sides of the aisle. But what Iowa might lack in population and size, it makes up for in primary calendar position -- especially in this truncated cycle when well over half the states will have held their primary contests on or before February 5. Early momentum -- or lack of it -- is more likely to make or break a presidential bid. As a result, presidential candidates and third-party organizations are forced to define their message sooner than ever, and the first wave of states may be their only chance to do it....

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According to an analysis by CMAG, more than 50,000 spots have aired in Iowa this cycle through December 29, with a final blitz expected in the days before the caucuses. On December 18 alone, 1,093 campaign ads aired on Iowa television, largely in the four major media markets in the state. That equals more than nine solid hours of commercials in 24 hours....

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois far outpaces any other candidate when it comes to ad spending in Iowa, having spent more than $9 million on close to 11,000 spots. That's about $2 million more than Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York has spent ($7.2 million), and about three times the amount that former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has shelled out ($3.2 million). Clinton has aired close to 8,000 spots while Edwards has aired 3,700. On the Republican side, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has spent close to $7 million for 8,500 spots, about five times more than former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has spent ($1.4 million) for 1,800 ads. Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee is close behind, spending $1.1 million for 1,100 ads....

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But the massive candidate expenditures in Iowa are only half the story. Third-party organizations -- some of whose campaign funds are unregulated and not tied to donation caps -- have spent heavily in Iowa. Edwards and Clinton are largely the beneficiaries of these groups' spending on the Democratic side. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the major union organization that has endorsed Clinton, has spent close to $700,000 on ads, while Alliance for a New America -- a Service Employees International Union political action committee headed by Edwards' former campaign aide Nick Baldick -- has spent nearly $250,000 on behalf of Edwards. Edwards is also the beneficiary of $364,467 worth of ad spending from Working for Working Americans, a United Brotherhood of Carpenters Union PAC.

Obama, the target of many of the third-party ads, especially those from Alliance For a New America, has directly called on Edwards to denounce the spots and has used the issue on the stump as evidence the former senator is not the fighter of special interests he claims to be....

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/01/iowa.ad.spending/index.html

[shraby]

1. One word....OBSCENE

[AtomicKitten]

2. Obama has refused 527 help in the primary.

His campaign is paying for all ads. Can the other candidates say the same?