Wow:
Barack Obama has spent a record breaking $60 million to run more than 100,000 political television ads in pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination, a new analysis conducted for CNN shows.
In contrast, John Kerry ran a little more than 19,000 TV ads four years ago in his successful bid for the Democratic nomination, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG, CNN’s consultant on political television advertising spending.
Kerry wrapped up the nomination in the first week of March 2004, while there is no end in sight in the battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton for the right to be the 2008 Democratic nominee.
Clinton, who trails Obama in fundraising by about $60 million, has run just over 60,000 TV ads in her bid for the White House.
Also, it appears that Obama is making a massive, massive ad buy in Pennsylvania — three times the size of Clinton’s. I guess he thinks he might as well go for the jugular: the polls show PA tightening, and if he can pull out a surprise victory there, the campaign is effectively over.
That won’t stop the Clinton campaign from spinning, however. “If Senator Obama is not able to win Pennsylvania,” said Howard Wolfson on a conference all today, “it will again demonstrate that he has serious problems winning the large states and serious problems closing the deal with voters.” Wolfson also said it would be a “significant defeat for [Obama]” if he can’t come out ahead in PA. Hard to ignore that 20-point gap from a month ago, though.
