Obama’s Ads Far More Negative, Study Finds
By SusanUnPC on September 18, 2008 at 1:35 PM in Advertising, Barack Obama, McCain/Palin 2008, Obama Attack Ads
From the Christian Science Monitor:
[...]
Negative campaigning
McCain goes negative and Obama does not — a pattern? No. It’s actually the opposite, according to a new study released today. The Wisconsin Advertising Project found that Obama went negative in 77 percent of his commercials last week while McCain’s were only 56 percent negative.
The director of the study, Ken Goldstein, said “advertising reflects reality” and that reality appears to suggest that Obama needed to fight back.
“It suggests that the Sarah Palin pick and the newfound aggressiveness by MCain got into Obama’s head a little bit,” Goldstein says. “He was under great pressure to show some spine, be aggressive, fire back.”
Here are more reports on the “ad wars” and the false perception Obama is spreading that McCain is more negative when, in fact, it’s Obama who’s airing the most negative ads:
From U.S. News & World Report:
Obama and McCain Flood Battleground States With $a5 Million in TV Ads
Much of their advertising budgets is dedicated to Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan
By Liz Halloran
Posted September 17, 2008The Obama and McCain presidential campaigns, along with both political party organizations, have flooded the airways with more than $15 million in television advertising since the convention and, despite early predictions of an “expanded playing field,” the key states targeted look very much like the same battleground states of 2004, according to an analysis released today by the Wisconsin Advertising Project.
The project, directed by Ken Goldstein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that the campaigns were dumping their biggest loads of TV advertising money into Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.
GOP nominee John McCain has spent $7.8 million in television advertising since his convention early this month, including $4.5 million to air spots in 10 battleground states–with a heavy new focus in Florida.
Democratic nominee Barack Obama has spent almost the same–$7.77 million, with $3.56 million devoted to the 10 battleground states identified by the project.
The post-convention buys, says Goldstein, “give us the first insights into the campaigns’ assessments of where they think they are competitive as the fall campaign heats up. Advertising represents reality.”
The survey also found that 97 percent of Obama’s ads were sponsored by the candidate but that McCain, who accepted public financing for the general election campaign and is limited to $84 million in what he can spend, has run 57 percent of his ads in cooperation with the Republican National Committee. The RNC is playing a major role in funding McCain’s fall effort.
The survey also found that Obama has run a higher percentage of negative ads than McCain since the conventions closed—77 percent to 56 percent. All of the Obama ads that mentioned McCain pictured him with or mentioned President Bush. …
by Ronald Scott
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