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A historic presidential campaign is ending with a blitz of negative ads and a surge in spending by the presidential candidates, but a surprise shortfall in spending by independent groups. It’s also ending with the unexpected emergence of Georgia, North Dakota and Arizona as battleground states and intense...
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Barack Obama's presidential campaign is taking the unprecedented step of launching its first advertising in rival John McCain’s home state of Arizona. Obama campaign manager David Plouffe announced the advertising buy this morning, saying the campaign also would relaunch advertising in Georgia, where...
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As the presidential campaign moved into its closing weeks, negative ads continued to dominate the airwaves. But Barack Obama’s ads have turned more negative while Republican John McCain has mixed in some positive messages to his earlier all-out-attack strategy. A study from the University of Wisconsin...
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Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama purchased 30 minutes of time on CBS and NBC during prime time and is in talks to purchase spots on other networks, people familiar with the matter said. The 30-minute ad will air from 8 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday Oct. 29. It’s the first political...
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It is apparently official that this year’s political ads in the presidential race are more negative that those that ran four years ago—at least the political ads from the candidates themselves. The Wisconsin Advertising Project of the University of Wisconsin is reporting today that the McCain campaign...
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Look out below. John McCain’s success at increasing his poll numbers and controlling the presidential campaign’s agenda after the GOP convention appears to bode a far more negative tone in TV political ads in the campaign’s final two months. The change was already becoming apparent late last week as...
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A John McCain campaign Web ad that used a clip of CBS News anchor Katie Couric to chastise Democratic candidate Barack Obama has been pulled by YouTube, because of CBS’ copyright complaints. Campaign officials did not immediately return a request for comment, but the YouTube page that had contained the...
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CBS News so far is not commenting on the decision by Sen. John McCain’s campaign to use video of “Evening News” anchor Katie Couric to chastise Democratic candidate Barack Obama in a new Web advertisement. The new McCain ad rips Sen. Obama for his use of the “you can put lipstick on a pig” idiom yesterday...
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Republican presidential candidate John McCain discarded precedent from recent elections, buying political ads on network TV for the second time in as many months. Last month, both McCain and his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, purchased TV time during the Olympics. This time Sen. McCain is leading the...
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After suspending its advertising during Hurricane Gustav, Senator John McCain’s campaign is returning to the air to defend the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for VP on the Republican ticket. The campaign today announced plans for the advertising as part of an outreach effort to counter “smears...
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Hollywood ad man Fred Davis’s creative staff is editing video this week in an 8 x 10 foot room cubicle featuring a cow skull over the door, a deer head on the wall, an oriental rug and five people working around the clock. One hint politics may be at play is the poster of Barack Obama on the wall smoking...
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The pitch and tone at the Democratic National Convention signals that the final two months of the campaign are going to be hard fought, with more TV advertising in more states than ever before. David Plouffe, the campaign manager for Democratic nominee Barack Obama, told the convention the candidate...
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New data from the Nielsen Co. finds that while Barack Obama has run more local TV spots than John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee has placed more national cable TV ads than his Democratic counterpart during June and July. Nielsen surveyed ad numbers and online buzz for each candidate as the...