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October 22, 2008

McCain trims ad buys in 5 states

Rick Moran
John McCain's campaign, trailing in several key states with less than two weeks to go, has decided to cut back on ad buys in states where he is falling further behind in order to concentrate his resources where they will do the most good:

The Caucus Blog at the New York Times:

Democrats who monitor advertising spending now put at five the number of states where Senator John McCain is reducing his advertising - New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Colorado, Maine and Minnesota.

In essence, Mr. McCain's campaign has decided to spread the advertising time he bought for the upcoming week in those states over the next two final weeks.



While station managers in the affected states said they were not ruling out the possibility that Mr. McCain would pump money back in before election day, on Nov. 4, the move represents a stark reordering of priorities.



Democrats were predicting Mr. McCain would use the savings to increase his advertising in Pennsylvania and, possibly, Ohio and Florida, all of which have become that much more vital should Mr. McCain have to concede states like Colorado and Wisconsin.



By our very rough reckoning, based on what he spent in those states last week according to advertising monitoring firm CMAG, the move should free up an additional $2 million that Mr. McCain can now spend in Pennsylvania, or wherever else.

It should be pointed out that McCain is not conceding anything. His is simply dealing with the reality of the race as it stands now. He will likely lose all of those states (he is 10 points behind in Colorado according to the latest Rasumussen poll) and by cutting his ad buys in half, he frees up resources to spend in Ohio (where he is virtually tied with Obama), Florida (where he is slightly behind) and Pennsylvania (where he trails by double digits at the moment.)

Also, the Republican National Committee will no doubt take up some of the slack in Colorado. There is still a somewhat competitive senate race in that state and the party cannot afford to see McCain drop off the edge of a cliff.

It appears that everything for McCain may be riding on Ohio, Florida, and now Pennsylvania. He will probably need to take all three to win.


Posted at 10:45 AM | Email | | | Share Share
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