Robert Nedelkoff: The Obamamercial
[Robert Nedelkoff, a resident of Silver Spring, MD, received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Louisville and his Juris Doctor degree from Monterey College of Law in 1996. Since 1997, he has worked on behalf of the Richard Nixon Foundation at the National Archives in College Park, MD. He has published articles in several magazines, including GQ and McSweeney’s.]
When I was young, in the days before federal campaign-financing laws, presidential candidates more often than not bought substantial chunks of national TV airtime just before Election Day. Ronald Reagan made his first huge national impact politically when he delivered an address supporting Sen. Barry Goldwater in 1964. In 1968, Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace, and Richard Nixon all purchased half-hour and hour chunks of airtime to promote their candidacies. But after 1976, the ceiling on campaign fundraising prevented this kind of expenditure. When H. Ross Perot, who was self-financing his run, purchased a segment of network time to display his charts in 1992, it was the first time in ages that any candidate had tried the approach, and until this year it was the last.
However, the organization of Sen. Barack Obama, having chosen to opt out of the usual system, has a lot to spend and mere days in which to spend it. And tonight, at a cost estimated at from $3 million to $5 million, his campaign aired a 30-minute commercial in prime time on CBS, NBC, Fox, MSNBC, TVOne, BET, and Univision.
The commercial alternated footage of some “typical” folks - a football mom in North Kansas City (as opposed to Kansas City North), an aging African-American couple (with the husband playing some reasonably mean blues guitar) in Ohio, a teacher in New Mexico, and a worker at the Ford truck plant in Louisville - with shots of Obama in an office that looked intriguingly oval, reciting his program. It finished with two minutes of the candidate, live, dazzling an arena in Florida.
The presentation was considerably more skillful than any of the films featured in the Democratic convention this year, and was very expertly calibrated to hit all the right emotional notes, right down to the candidate describing how he read every one of the Harry Potter books to his daughters. (This may lose him the votes of some fundamentalists, but it probably will help him with a lot of grandparents in Florida.) The interspersed comments from various Democratic governors and senators (with several of the swing states represented) also flowed in and out quite well.
Sen. John McCain, speaking on Larry King’s show tonight (in segments taped before the Obama program’s broadcast), again emphasized the points that have been working best for his campaign in recent weeks: Obama’s ultraliberal remarks during his days in the Illinois Senate; his inexperience and what that might mean in the foreign-policy field; and the possible effect of his tax policies on small businessmen seeking to improve their status. At this point, given the Obama camp’s enormous financial advantage, it’s hard to say whether McCain can do anything more than get the message through at rallies and 30-second TV spots and hope that Youtube and volunteers can do the rest. After McCain’s interview, King asked Dan Rather tonight whether the Obama campaign wasn’t risking overkill with this all-out press. Rather compared the Democratic approach to Dean Smith’s traditional endgame as basketball coach at the University of North Carolina and concluded that it made the most sense for the campaign to use its best stuff at the end.
But, as Rather also observed, “It’s often said that overnight in politics is a long time and a week is forever.” Things have continued to take unusual twists and turns. Last month, Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher a pretty anonymous fellow in suburban Toledo; last week he was talking of running for Congress in his northwestern Ohio district against Marcy Kaptur (who won re-election in 2006 with 75% of the vote); today he let it be known that he’s pursuing a country-music career, at least for the time being. Who knows what tomorrow or the weekend will bring?
Read entire article at Nixon Blog
When I was young, in the days before federal campaign-financing laws, presidential candidates more often than not bought substantial chunks of national TV airtime just before Election Day. Ronald Reagan made his first huge national impact politically when he delivered an address supporting Sen. Barry Goldwater in 1964. In 1968, Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace, and Richard Nixon all purchased half-hour and hour chunks of airtime to promote their candidacies. But after 1976, the ceiling on campaign fundraising prevented this kind of expenditure. When H. Ross Perot, who was self-financing his run, purchased a segment of network time to display his charts in 1992, it was the first time in ages that any candidate had tried the approach, and until this year it was the last.
However, the organization of Sen. Barack Obama, having chosen to opt out of the usual system, has a lot to spend and mere days in which to spend it. And tonight, at a cost estimated at from $3 million to $5 million, his campaign aired a 30-minute commercial in prime time on CBS, NBC, Fox, MSNBC, TVOne, BET, and Univision.
The commercial alternated footage of some “typical” folks - a football mom in North Kansas City (as opposed to Kansas City North), an aging African-American couple (with the husband playing some reasonably mean blues guitar) in Ohio, a teacher in New Mexico, and a worker at the Ford truck plant in Louisville - with shots of Obama in an office that looked intriguingly oval, reciting his program. It finished with two minutes of the candidate, live, dazzling an arena in Florida.
The presentation was considerably more skillful than any of the films featured in the Democratic convention this year, and was very expertly calibrated to hit all the right emotional notes, right down to the candidate describing how he read every one of the Harry Potter books to his daughters. (This may lose him the votes of some fundamentalists, but it probably will help him with a lot of grandparents in Florida.) The interspersed comments from various Democratic governors and senators (with several of the swing states represented) also flowed in and out quite well.
Sen. John McCain, speaking on Larry King’s show tonight (in segments taped before the Obama program’s broadcast), again emphasized the points that have been working best for his campaign in recent weeks: Obama’s ultraliberal remarks during his days in the Illinois Senate; his inexperience and what that might mean in the foreign-policy field; and the possible effect of his tax policies on small businessmen seeking to improve their status. At this point, given the Obama camp’s enormous financial advantage, it’s hard to say whether McCain can do anything more than get the message through at rallies and 30-second TV spots and hope that Youtube and volunteers can do the rest. After McCain’s interview, King asked Dan Rather tonight whether the Obama campaign wasn’t risking overkill with this all-out press. Rather compared the Democratic approach to Dean Smith’s traditional endgame as basketball coach at the University of North Carolina and concluded that it made the most sense for the campaign to use its best stuff at the end.
But, as Rather also observed, “It’s often said that overnight in politics is a long time and a week is forever.” Things have continued to take unusual twists and turns. Last month, Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher a pretty anonymous fellow in suburban Toledo; last week he was talking of running for Congress in his northwestern Ohio district against Marcy Kaptur (who won re-election in 2006 with 75% of the vote); today he let it be known that he’s pursuing a country-music career, at least for the time being. Who knows what tomorrow or the weekend will bring?