With Commercial, McCain Gets Much More Than His Money’s Worth

[depakid]

The number of times Senator John McCain’s new advertisement attacking Senator Barack Obama for canceling a visit with wounded troops in Germany last week has been shown fully or partly on local, national and cable newscasts: well into the hundreds.

The number of times that spot actually, truly ran as a paid commercial: roughly a dozen.

Result for Mr. McCain: a public relations coup that allowed him to show his toughest campaign advertisement of the year — one widely panned as misleading — to millions of people, largely free, through television news media hungry for political news with arresting visual imagery.

Political campaigns have for years sought to broadcast their ads free by making them intriguing enough to draw wide coverage from news outlets.

And Mr. McCain’s campaign has proved particularly adept at getting such free air time in recent weeks, as news stations endlessly repeat the advertisements, which feature provocative visuals that can fill time during a relative lull in the campaign season.

<snip>

The free Sunday morning coverage also showed the limits of relying on news programs to carry advertising: A guest on “Face the Nation,” Senator Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican who traveled with Mr. Obama abroad, called the spot “inappropriate”; Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, said on “Fox News Sunday” that the ad was “beneath John McCain.”

Similarly, on MSNBC, the chief foreign affairs correspondent, Andrea Mitchell, said Monday: “Obama had no intention of bringing cameras with him. I was there; I can vouch for that.”

Nevertheless, the advertisement ran in part or in full roughly two dozen times within the news coverage of MSNBC and the Fox News Channel, and less frequently on CNN, according to a review on ShadowTV, a database of programming on cable and nearly 100 television stations.

Early Tuesday morning Brooke Wagner, an anchor at the CBS affiliate in Denver — where the ad first ran Saturday night, on the NBC affiliate — again introduced the spot. “A new TV commercial from John McCain is criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama,” Ms. Wagner reported, before showing much of the ad.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/politics/30ads.html

Here we go again.

Two can play at this game- except that our side won't, because that would be "negative" and "we need to take the high road."

[MercutioATC]

1. We've always been lousy at this game.

We need a 527 that runs McCain's real military history 24/7 for a week or two.


5th from the bottom of his class at Annapolis.

Mediocre pilot at best, according to his instructors.

"Reverse Ace" - lost 5 planes.

May have caused the Forrestal disaster.

Cracked under interrogation and sold out.


Obama could vehemently object to the ads...but you can't unring a bell.


Hell, I could produce a few of these off the top of my head...

[RamboLiberal]

8. Run that ad and we lose

Sorry, but attacking McCain's record is a loser. And 3 of your charges are BS at best!

And attacking him as a POW - that's a big No Go!

The Forrestal charge is complete crap.

5 planes - try 3 - you can't blame a shootdown or the Forrestal loss in his plane losses.

I'd rather attack him on his political record. Go back to the Keating 5 for one.

[MercutioATC]

9. I didn't say they were true...

Just as Obama's now "not being against the war" isn't true...just like his being Muslim isn't true...

"We" shouldn't do this, a 527 should. People are stupid and they want petty dirt whether it's true or not. Feed them.

[RamboLiberal]

10. Yeah what 527? Look how they've managed to turn MoveOn.org

into a dirty word.

It's a LOSER for Obama for anyone including a 527 to go there.

And do we really need to lose our soul like the Repukes have? Run lies?

[Gabi Hayes]

2. here's what happens when somebody puts out something unflattering about McCain:

can you say Iseman?

remember what happened when they tried to do a story on McCain's being in bed, literally, with K Street?

[thoughtcrime1984]

3. McCain and adept in the same sentence, LOL!!! nt

[high density]

4. The most painful thing is that the media response rewards this sort of behavior from McCain

He can put out lies in an ad, buy a dozen spots for it on some cable operator in Montana, and then the media will play it hundreds of times for free. Just the fact that he has an attack ad is news for some reason.

I could imagine Obama's campaign trying to do this. What if they highlighted McCain's lack of "support for the troops" in his past senate votes? Obama would be tarred and feathered by the media for being out of bounds; look at what they did to one sentence from General Clark. You'd never see the media "fact check" something so quickly.

[Skwmom]

6. You think they are running it just because it is NEWS?

Corporations own the MEDIA and they have a VESTED INTEREST in making sure they get a pro corporate President elected. McCain has made plenty of NEWS, but since it doesn't help McCain you won't be hearing any of that news.

[Skwmom]

5. When is Feingold going to have the guts to stand up and say that

his campaign finance reform is MEANINGLESS? He criticized Obama for opting out of a system in which the corporate media can provides 100 of millions of dollars of free advertising to the corporate candidate of their choice. Obama would have crippled his campaign if he opted into public financing.

We see the free ads shown on cable news. After the 2000 election, the Carlye Group went into OH and other states and bought up local news networks. What ads do you think they are running for free? Hint, it's not Obamas.

If Feingold is the great guy so many of you think he is, then he will stand up and admit that there will be NO MEANINGFUL campaign finance reform UNTIL something is done about the corporate media. In fact, it would be suicide for the non corporate candidate to accept public financing.

[kitfalbo]

7. blatant

They blatantly want McCain to win, Bias study with free advertising and ignoring McCains worst faults. The worst part is as this evidence builds they are not worried. Because They control the news,most people won't see it only the small faction who go on the internet for something other than games, porn, and copyright infringement.