by Frank James
The Nielsen Co. gives us an idea this morning of just how much the leading presidential candidates have carpet-bombed the New Hampshire media market with advertising in the months, days and hours leading up to that state's important primary tomorrow.
Here's a handy table showing a breakdown of the 27,230 ads that have run in all three New Hampshire TV markets during the past year.
Looking just at the most expensive, most populous New Hampshire television market, the Boston/ Manchester, N.H. market where 16,250 ads have run, we see that Sen. Barack Obama, at 2,786, has run 328 more ads than his Democratic rival for the presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton who has run 2,458.
One might have expected that Obama would've run many more ads since he was relatively unknown and Clinton was virtually known by everyone.
He may've not had to run as many ads as he would've otherwise had to since he's received so much free media that's been, to hear the Clinton campaign tell it, overwhelmingly positive at that.
Interestingly, in the first four days of 2008, Obama ran just 12 ads to Clinton's 21 ads and John Edwards' 23 ads.
On the Republican side, Mitt Romney's campaign ran 3,831 ads, outstripping his fellow GOP candidates and Democrats alike.
Sen. John McCain comes in second at 2,365. That Romney has run so many ads is interesting since, as the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, he was relatively well-known in New Hampshire.
It's also noteworthy that he started running his ads last February. By contrast, McCain's campaign, which ran perilously low on campaign cash last spring evidently wasn't spending its millions on ads. It didn't run an ad in the Boston/Manchester market until October.
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Have questions about what's happening on the ground in New Hampshire, or anything else related to race for the White House or Election 2008? The Swamp is hosting a live video chat at 12:30 pm central time from Manchester, N.H. with Tribune journalists covering the campaign.
E-mail your questions to us and we'll answer as many as time allows.
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Comments
And all the ads make me pretty ill. Simple solution. Turn off your TV's everyone. Campaign finance would change overnight if they weren't having to raise the millions required to create these ads. Tax the junk mail also.
Posted by: DD | January 7, 2008 1:13 PM