The cost to try to influence the 2008 election could exceed $3 billion, according to TNS Media
Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, CNN's consultant on political television advertising.
Television ads on health care alone total $60 million. CMAG estimates more than $3 million of the $270 million spent to air issue-advocacy ads this year has gone for commercials in states and districts that are likely to have competitive House and Senate races in 2008.
With 17 Democratic and Republican candidates running for president, CMAG predicts that more than $800 million will be spent on TV ads in the battle for the White House.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads all candidates in TV spending, having aired his commercials more than 11,000 times this year at a cost of nearly $8.6 million. This is a record for the number of airings at this point in a presidential election cycle
"Chances are, just as what happened in 2006, voters will be numb after watching hundreds and hundreds of ads," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. "The sheer number of ads probably dilutes their importance. After a while, the ads just become lots of chatter and an ad will have to be really good to cut through the noise."
Read the full story from CNN.
ABC News announced today that the Clinton campaign has bought two new domain names. The
domains,
Votingpresent.com and Votingpresent.org, which are hosted by the same IP address as other Clinton sites, will be used to launch a negative Obama site.
Chuck Cushman lives in rural Washington, he’s an avid Blazers fan, a long-term conservative activist, and
he’s displeased.