BY TAYLOR MARSH
It costs somewhere between $3.5 – $5 million and will air on CBS, NBC, FOX
television, MSNBC, Univision, BET and TV One. CNN
declined the request:
“CNN was approached by the Obama campaign and declined their request,”
the network said in a Tuesday statement. “We did not want to pre-empt
our programming lineup with a 30-minute campaign commercial. We prefer to
use our air to continue to cover the campaign, candidates and issues like
we always do from all points of view with the best political team on television.”
One
ad guru called it “muscle flex.” A “no brainer” for
the Obama campaign.
Politico’s Jeanne Cummings straddles the definitive by asking the question. The notoriously boorish Alex Castellanos offered this:
Republican political strategist Alex Castellanos says that it might. But
even his advice is to go for it. “It’s like football,” says
Castellanos. “People may complain that a team is running up the score,
but that team is still the one that wins.”
The best analysis so far comes from a Democrat:
Jim Jordan, a Democratic strategist, says the broadcast is timed to sway
late breaking, undecided voters who can often tighten or determine a close
race in the final days.“There is a discrete segment of the electorate, primarily female, who
are late deciders. They care about policy and elections, but they are very,
very busy. They actively tune it out until the last week or ten days. Then
they go and seek and acquire information,” he says.
After doing a short study on female voters, I can attest that what I learned
confirms this fact. Undecided female voters detest the negative ads, but crave
informational comparisons between candidates.
I’ve got reservations about it, but I understand why Obama’s doing it and there’s
no doubt he has the chops to pull it off. It’s all a matter of how it’s spun. The good news on that front is that the media hasn’t turned on Obama yet.
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