A new analysis finds the nation’s health care overhaul deserves a place in advertising history as the focus of extraordinarily high spending on negative political TV ads that have gone largely unanswered by the law’s supporters. The report, released Friday by nonpartisan analysts Kantar Media CMAG, estimates that $445 million […] Read more »
Can Democrats Win On Koch Attacks?
Republicans scoff when they hear that Democrats plan to make the Koch brothers and their heavy investment into GOP campaigns an issue in 2014. Even one top Democratic strategist told me he thought that all the attention put on the billionaire brothers was too obscure for regular voters to care […] Read more »
We’ve Classified 50,000+ Campaign Ads since 2004. Here They Are.
From the 2004 election cycle through March 31, 2014, Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group has classified more than 50,000 TV ads in races for president on down to local office. This figure excludes the thousands of ballot initiative ads, non-election issue ads, and pre-2004 campaign ads we’ve also classified. […] Read more »
Tuned Out
As I watched the big television screen broadcasting the focus group taking place in Charlotte, N.C., I was tempted to tweet about it. This is the modern instinct. I don’t just mean for reporters. Everyone seems to have a couple of screens open all the time. … The Tuesday evening […] Read more »
Inside the Republican Database Behind David Jolly’s Upset Victory
To hear Republican strategists involved with David Jolly’s campaign tell it, the newest Republican in Congress owes his victory to a “Honeybadger.” That’s what officials at National Republican Congressional Committee call the voter database they’ve spent a year tirelessly building from scratch, which they argue was essential to Jolly’s surprising […] Read more »
As viewing habits change, political campaigns must change their habits, as well
For half a century, television ads have been the staple of political campaigns, the preferred, if costly, vehicle for communicating a candidate’s message to the voters. What happens when people stop watching live television? That day hasn’t arrived yet and probably never will. But the outlines of the new world […] Read more »