Ad wars

Michele Bachmann’s office just did an email blast to publicize her brand-new commercial in the suddenly tight Sixth District race. It may be the weakest spot, creatively and message-wise, that any Minnesota congressional candidate from either party has released this season. Like so much about her campaign recently, it suggests she was not really prepared [...]

After abandoning Michigan partly on the grounds of putting more resources into Midwestern neighbors like Wisconsin and Minnesota, the McCain campaign is now pulling up stakes in Wisconsin too — and, according to the AP, Maine. Writes Jim Kuhnhenn, “The party’s independent ad operation is doubling its budget to about $10 million and focusing on [...]

This is new from the Our Country Deserves Better PAC, a right-wing outfit headed by political consultants Joe Wierzbicki and Sal Russo and former California Rep. Howard Kaloogian. (Board details here.) It’s 30 seconds of scare-’em-in-the-sticks that run the gamut from a shot of Obama without his hand over his heart during a national anthem [...]

If you’re curious to know how confident the Obama campaign feels about its widening lead in Minnesota, here’s a dollars-and-cents clue. According to figures released by the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project late last week, the presidential campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama spent over $28 million nationally on TV advertising during the week of Sept. 28-Oct. 4. And there’s an interesting anomaly in the Minnesota totals: Among states identified as Midwestern battlegrounds — by UWAP’s reckoning, these are Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania (?) and Wisconsin — Minnesota is one of only two where McCain outspent Obama (the other is Iowa), and by a whopping margin of almost exactly 5-1 ($608,000 – $121,000).

At a Wednesday news conference, DFL 3rd District congressional candidate Ashwin Madia, pledging to push a positive message on the economy and steer clear of negative attacks, said he would have voted for the bailout bill the U.S. House of Representatives rejected Monday — if inaction were the alternative. But he added that any bailout must include both guaranteed relief for middle-class homeowners facing foreclosure and oversight from outside the U.S. Department of Treasury. He also called a new line of attack by allies of Republican state Sen. Erik Paulsen’s campaign — focusing on Madia as an unmarried non-homeowner uninvolved in youth soccer — “bizarre.”

A new radio ad by the Obama campaign accuses John McCain of supporting an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning abortion and re-airs McCain’s support for overturning Roe v. Wade, Politico reports. The ad campaign exemplifies a shift over previous election cycles where Republicans have used the hot-button issue to hammer Democrats. However, polling suggests [...]

Even such an establishmentarian milquetoast as Joe Klein is terming the McCain campaign’s latest TV spot “one of the sleaziest ads I’ve ever seen in presidential politics.” “Education” makes the absurd claim that Barack Obama favors explicit sex education for kindergarteners. Question: Is McCain betting that the media will not take on his distortions and [...]

Ix-nay on the speculation that John McCain will use the ad his campaign is airing tonight to introduce his running mate, or to challenge Obama to town hall meetings again. Or to do anything else, really. “Convention night” is just a kissy-face non sequitur that congratulates Obama on his night in the spotlight.
Is this really [...]