[BABRAM]

TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo | McCain Campaign's Ad Spending Now Nearly 100 Percent Devoted To Attack Ads

"The McCain campaign has now shifted virtually 100 percent of his national ad spending into negative ads attacking Obama, a detailed breakdown of his ad buys reveals.

By contrast, the Obama campaign is devoting less than half of its overall ad spending to ads attacking McCain. More than half of its spending is going to a spot that doesn't once mention his foe.

I asked Evan Tracey -- who tracks national ad spending for the Campaign Media Analysis Group -- to detail the amounts each campaign is spending on specific different spots. The idea was to gauge the precise degree of the McCain campaign's shift into negative mode amid his slide in the polls, and determine whether the Obama camp was following suit.

The results were striking, and suggest a sharper turn into negative campaigning as time runs low. For one thing, Tracey says, Obama is now outspending McCain by nearly two to one on the air -- Obama is spending $2.4 million per week, and McCain is spending $1.3 million weekly. But on to the breakdowns.

As of October 1 -- three days ago -- the McCain campaign's $1.3 million weekly is being broken down as follows, according to Tracey, who stressed that he himself wasn't labeling the ads either "positive" or "negative":


* Nearly half a million weekly is funding the ad called "Dome," which attacks "Obama and his liberal allies" in Congress for favoring "massive government."

* A shade more than half a million is funding the ad called "Mum," which attacks "Obama and his liberal allies" as "mum on the market crisis."

* Much of the remaining McCain money is funding a spot called "Overseas," which says that "Barack Obama and his liberal allies are to blame" for jobs going overseas. A negligible amount of the remainder is going to a positive spot, the "Original Mavericks" ad.

This is a dramatic shift from the period before he suspended his campaign. At that time, Tracey says, McCain was spending in the neighborhood of half his ad money on the positive "Original Mavericks" ad, and around half on the negative "Dome" spot.

This week, by contrast, "Original Mavericks" ran on Monday only eight times, suggesting that this positive spot is "cycling out of the rotation," as Tracey puts it. "McCain took out the "Mavericks" spot and replaced it with "Mum," Tracey says.

Now let's look at Obama's spending breakdown.

Of his $2.4 million weekly, Tracey says, well over half -- $1.4 million -- is funding the spot called "Real Change," which criticizes the status quo but doesn't mention McCain once.

The remaining million per week is funding a smattering of ads that do attack McCain, on topics like Social Security, health care, and McCain's "fundamentals of the economy" line.

Pretty striking contrast."

[Skell]

To be honest I don't know, but if ABC promoted it there must be something to it. What about the Pew Research study?

Im not denying that your study looks bad. But studies are studies. Facts and data can be twisted to produce any outcome the writer wants (Look at the previous gun debates between Elliot and I).

If I googled I'm sure I could find a report that produces results that show the amount of negative radio and print media against Obama far outweighs McCain. They mean nothing. I prefer to go on what I see and hear for myself. And what I am seeing and hearing is a sh1tload of mud slinging from both sides. No camp is better or worse off than the other. You guys just don't like it because your getting beat. So its everyone else fault other than the Republicans themselves. That's where the blame lies. They've nominated the wrong guy, nominated the wrong gal, run a poor campaign and their current leader has stuffed up all and sundry.

It isn't the media's fault you guys are copping a caning. Time to look in the mirror. Its all excuses and whinging. You sure you aren't a politician Steve? :) ;)

[speechlesstx]

It aint the media's fault you guys are copping a caning. Time to look in the mirror. Its all excuses and whinging. You sure you aren't a politician Steve?? :) ;)

Do you think I base this on studies? It's by what I see, hear and read. It's every day in my paper, every day on the radio, every day on TV and it doesn't take a genius to see the obvious bias, they don't even try to mask it as "news" any more.

[inthebox]

When Obama says "spread the wealth" or " its above my paygrade" or to quote Murtha for what he said... how is that negative?

[speechlesstx]

inthebox, the left has a blind spot when it comes to their own negativity. They live by the smear, they're like the football player that throws a punch after a play, and when the guy punches back he raises his hands and says, "did you see what that guy did?" Jonah Goldberg touched on this phenomenon beautifully:

Transcend means “to move beyond, to surpass.” At least that’s what I always thought. But I’m beginning to wonder whether it means instead: “Much, much more of the same, only this time really stupid.”

Exhibit A: the incessant, relentless, click-your-ruby-red-slippers-and-say-it-until-it-comes-true mantra that Barack Obama will magically cause America to “transcend race.” One hears and reads this everywhere, but less as an argument than as a prayer, an expression of faith, a “from my lips to The One’s ear” sort of thing.

It is, of course, total and complete nonsense. According to L.B.O. (Logic Before Obama), transcending race would involve making race less of an issue. Passengers on Spaceship Obama would see race shrink and then vanish in the rearview mirror.

Instead, Obama has set off a case of full-blown race dementia among precisely the crowd that swears Obama is leading us out of the racial wilderness. Rather than shrink, the tumor of racial paranoia is metastasizing, pressing down on the medulla oblongata or whatever part of the brain that, when poked, causes one to hallucinate, conjure false memories and write astoundingly insipid things. For instance, a writer for Slate sees racism when anyone notes that Barack Obama is — wait for it — skinny. What this portends for Fat Albert is above my pay grade.

We need to rewrite those old Schoolhouse Rock cartoons, because now virtually any adjective, noun, verb, or adverb aimed at Barack Obama that is not obsequiously sycophantic or wantonly worshipful runs the risk of being decried as racist. Community organizer? Racist! Mentioning his middle name? Racist! Arrogant? Racist! Palling around with a (white) terrorist? Racist! Celebrity? Racist! Cosmopolitan? Racist! This? Racist! That? Racist! The other thing? Oh man, that’s really racist.

The new Schoolhouse Rock cartoon: “Conjunction: a word that connects a racist attack and Barack Obama.”...

The idea that Obama was ever really about transcending race flies completely in the face of his own writings. The overarching theme of his book Dreams From My Father is the story of man who found it impossible to transcend race and instead explicitly chose to have a racial identity when he didn’t have to (he describes fellow multiracial students he met in college as sellouts). He then joined a black church whose theology is shot-through with black nationalism and whose longtime pastor believes that black brains are different from white brains.

But, yes, I know: The above paragraph reads: “Blah, blah, blah ... racist, racism, racey-race-racism.”

When Obama plays to voter fears on Social Security and Medicare in misleading ads in Florida or accuses McCain of a racial slur in a Spanish language ad they call it truth and just say he was "responding to McCain's attacks." If McCain said "the sky is blue" they'd scream that he was attacking McCain and wonder why we aren't talking about real issues. Just like that smear merchant Murtha...