Blogging the Detectives [BUMPED, STICKY]
In just the last couple of hours, I’ve had two readers tell me they’ve seen Obama attack ads on TV, despite living in bluer-than-blue-can-be parts of New York. While I doubt Obama 2012 is going to lose the Empire State, it’s no small thing that he’s spending money there to shore up his base.
So I have a favor to ask.
Do you live in a blue state or a blue city or live near a blue campus? If you do, and you see an Obama attack ad on a local channel, please jot down the time. Then shoot me an email, or leave a comment to this post — or to any post here on VodkaPundit. I’ll leave this post at the top of the page for a while.
We’ll get our hive mind together to figure out where Obama thinks he’s weakest, and I’ll use the info you provide in my next exciting episode of Wargaming the Electoral College.
Thanks in advance!
We now return you to our regularly-scheduled blogging.
I live 30 miles from Cleveland, Ohio. Obama attack ads air at least 5 times a day, morning, noon and night. Lorain and Cuyahoga counties are very blue, especially in the cities of Lorain and Cleveland, though very heavily Roman Catholic. My speculation is that the HHS mandate may be causing his ad buys. Not sure though.
Thanks. Keep your eyes sharp!
I’ve seen them here in Toledo too, which is also very blue, though the suburbs tend to go red. Be interesting to see what resources the Democrats pour into the new Ninth district, which pits Marcy Kaptur against Joe the Plumber. Should be a cake walk for team blue, but as redistricting put Marcy against Dennis Kucinich, Cleveland has bitter feelings.
Heh, in 1984 the Two Minutes Hate was scheduled for just once a day.
I live an hour south of Cleveland, but get the Cleveland stations. Everyday, I DVR my “guilty pleasure” Judge Judy which is on the schedule between 4 and 5 pm each day. It’s the local Fox affiliate, I believe. (If not, its the local CBS affiliate)
Presidential ads appear to be the primary advertisers in that time period. (The other being lawyers). Obama’s campaign is running at least 2 ads in just that 4-5 pm time period every week day. PAC’s supporting him are spending big money as well for ads in that time period.
As was said earlier, this is the “blue part” of Ohio. These ads have been airing so often for the last month or two that one would think that it is October, not June/July.
One thing worth thinking about–Obama is heavily using the scientific method in his advertising. While I’m sure that some of the surprising attack ads are because he thinks his position is more in doubt than it normally would be in a given place, some might just be shown essentially randomly for scientific rigour.
Nonetheless, very interested in seeing what the science shows.
That “scientific rigour” costs plenty of dough.
I live in California, where we *never* see political ads on TV, and I’ve seen the Romney singing ad a couple of times. I was stunned (this state is so blue it’s ridiculous) and the only thing I can think is that it was on basic cable. If I understand it right, you can buy an ad on those channels, and it plays everywhere in the country. You purchase this time with the understanding that if someone else, local, wishes to purchase the same spot for their local ad for a restaurant or something, the local ad will play over yours.
As to when it was, I’m sorry I don’t have the exact time. It was in the evening, in the week, maybe 5 days ago. I think it was on TNT. My story about the ad perhaps being purchased nationwide, and maybe bumped (or in this case not) by local advertising is something I read years ago…so it may no longer be true. I’ll keep looking, though…
Same here (SoCal). Saw the Romney singing ad a few times last week, on A&E during the afternoon.
I should say we never see political ads at the national level. When Arnie was Governor, we saw ads attacking him 3-4 times a day, sometimes more often, for a year. I read later the unions spent $100 million on those ads.
I’ve seen them here in Boston during the local news, but they may not be Obama’s they may be a PAC. I’ll try and record when they air.
By the way I usually watch the local Fox affiliate and find it funny he has to advertise with them.
Thanks, JFP.
And just to be clear, I’m looking for actual Obama 2012 ads, the ones that say, “I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.”
There are a lot of Obama ads here in Boston. The Boston media market includes a whole bunch of New Hampshire, and I think the ads are for that target.
The “singing Romney” ad has been running in the Little Rock market for about a week now. I’ve seen it evenings and weekends, varied times of day. Strange, actually, he’s got just about a snowball’s chance in hell in Arkansas although,
unlike Oklahoma, he did carry a few counties here.
Mr. Green,
A bit outside your criteria, and not sure what it means, but I have seen Obama ads (the Bain ad specifically) on both local network affiliates and cable channels, in Shreveport, Louisiana.
I am a DirecTV subscriber, so I don’t know if that matters.
This market reaches parts of four states (LA, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma) but its four states that decisively went for McCain in 2008. I pray there is no polling that shows Obama within striking distance of Romney in TX or LA, but otherwise it makes no sense. Do the campaigns do national ad buys on networks and cable channels in primetime?
I have not seen any Romney ads since the Louisiana primary back in the spring.
I live in NY and have Verizon Fios. Recall seeing the ad that mocks Romney singing either the national anthem or “America the Beautiful” during Sunday night’s “Breaking Bad”. Not sure if that was a national ad buy or if AMC(or Verizon) sells it’s ad time as market-specific.
I live just north of Seattle and I’ve been seeing the Romney signing ad about 5-6 times a day for the last week or so. They have all been on cable channels and not the local network affiliates. I was watching the British Open coverage on ESPN over the weekend and the ad was on at least once an hour during that coverage.
A mirror image issue that might be just as interesting, i live in swing state florida in the usually blue couunty of )eon (home of state capital and fsu) that strangely went mccain 4 years ago, and i havent seen an obama ad on tv or radio in weeks. I listen to btalk radio all day ( work from home) and watch tv all night so its not like id miss them if they were there
Obama ads are on MSNBC in the Oklahoma City area.
( I want to watch them cry )
The “singing Romney” ad…
That’s the one. I was trying to think which one I saw. I was doing something in the kitchen, had the headphones on, don’t know which channel; probability suggests it was cable channel TNT. In Hawaii.
Just saw an attack Obama ad here in Chicago (missed my connection, at hotel) 7:25 pm on Fox News, by Conservative Majority fund. Close to birtherism, all his records sealed, why does he have a Massachusetts social security number, etc. Want to get him thrown off the ballot. Did I mention this is Chicago?
Obama attack ads run 24/7 on the local stations in Clark County (Las Vegas) NV.
Thinking about it, I wonder if he’s worried. Unemployment is still +10% in these parts, and his remarks about not vacationing in LV surely haven’t done him any good.
Last Friday (7/20) between 10 pm and Midnight. On one of the Turner stations (TBS/TNT) in deep blue CT. Very surprised at the ad buy…why advertise in CT?
Why advertise at 10-12pm on TBS? What the heck demographic is that?
Maybe he’s trying to shore up Jersey in case Christie gets tapped for VP? Either that or it’s a fundraising play. If Obama is worried about New York for real, then the election is already lost(and I can look at the stats well enough to know that’s not the case).
Romney singing ad during Breaking Bad in OK. Must be national buy.
The singing Romney ad is all over Orange County. Not sure why he thinks he needs to spend money in California, even in Orange County.
If he outsourced to Mexico, Latin America, Asia and India…that might actually work in Romney’s favor in Orange County. For a myriad of reasons.
I haven’t heard whether he has an “enemies” redux on Spanish radio, but Romney singing America the beautiful slightly off key, with “outsourcing” script nonsense attached… is annoying enough to extract voter punishment. Against whom is not clear at this point. This ad is on constantly.
In Springfield, IL ~ channel 20. They ran the same Obama ad three times during the local news last night. There was one Romney ad, sponsored by one of the PACs.
That just doesn’t make sense. Granted, downstate is pretty red. But Illinois just isn’t on the menu for this election! And you can’t blame this one on an untargeted national buy–the local news hour is all local ads.
Is there a political professional who can tell us if this is normal?
NESN the sox game
8:42 pm on 7/25
Obama ran the anti Romney ad where he sings
He has also been running them every evening on the local news. I guess they need to get the base excited
You do realize, yer VP-ness, that this would require that I actually watch TV. What is once watched, cannot be unwatched.
Show me riverdancing Borg on YouTube and I’ll watch, but just this once.
I’ve been seeing alot of Obbama ads in Ohio lately. Most of htem are of the “Romney is a rich bitch” variety. Hard to say how effective it is in the Cincinnati-Dayton area, because of the military connection in Dayton (Wright-Patterson AFB and alot of high-end military-industrial science companies) and the strong German/Irish Roman Catholic representation in the area.
He might be aiming more for the Columbus area, which is rather hipster yuppie, and hoping that the other colleges around the area are like OSU (they’re not).
I am in Wilmington, DE (which is the Philadelphia tv market) and I just saw the singing Romney ad on TBS. It was 10:27 pm.
Saw the singing Romney ad again, this time on CNN at around 11:45 am.
Was in Half Moon Bay on the Cali coast south of San Fran. Saw the singing Romney ad at about 2 am PT on TNT.
Can I stray off on a tangent and ask you guys if that singing ad works? It made me dislike Obama even more, what a jerk to try to mock someone that way. I actually like Romney more after seeing that. (I’m in CO, obviously one of those swing states)
I agree; I found it quite disagreeable. It felt like an ad that was targeted at Obama’s base — people who are already dead-set against Romney, and don’t see that kind of mockery of him as mean-spirited.
As a strategy, I think that shows weakness on the part of the Obama campaign. Either they feel like they have to spend big money just to shore up their own natural partisans, or they don’t understand that the approach is just going to make a lot of undecideds (the people who should be the real targets of a national ad buy) sympathetic to Romney. Either way, it doesn’t augur well for Obama.
I am so glad to see you ask this Patrick! The singing Romney ad is running here in Louisiana (Cox cable – Ion television?)and frankly I think it’s a mistake. (Which is fine by me, the more mistakes they make the more they hurt his chances.) I find that it mocks honest patriotism, and we fly-overs don’t like that. Add to that the ending with the “I am Barak Obama and I approve this message”, and it’s just rubbing salt in the wound. Which just reinforces the thought that Obama really doesn’t understand how the majority of Americans think or feel.
While I would choose Romney over Obama on sheer competence, I found him somewhat “too perfect”.
Until the singing. Thanks to Obama, we now know that Romney cannot do everything well.
Obama humanized Romney better than Romney did.
Obama has an enthusiasm problem, so he is spending a lot of money to reach the base, to get them all ginned up. He has a cash advantage, for now, so he is priming the pump. The big donors are not giving like they did, so he must get the small donors. He has to reach as many people as possible to make that happen. It is just fund-raising. I doubt it will pay off, but they have no choice.
@ #25, These guys are bitter partisans. These ads work for the bitter partisans, I’m sure, but not for the common man. They are bitter so as to reach the bitter people.
I guess their mommas told them to “be the bigger man”, and they thought the mamas said “be the bitter man”.
7/26/12
Dear Steve,
It is Day Four of my vacation. It is also Day Four of a respiratory infection that has ruled out my original plans (and all the back-up plans). I am beyond bored – so I thought I would do some totally unscientific research for you.
From 11 am to 5 pm today I watched the commercials on Fox8 from Cleveland, Ohio. I have Direct TV and Cleveland is my local choice. Fox8 was the only station I watched. Results follow:
11 am – Noon 2 episodes of “Judge Judy”
11:27 Obama Approved Ad: 2 Plans
11:41 Obama Approved Ad: My quote was taken out of context
11:55 Obama Approved Ad: My quote was taken out of context
11:59 Obama Approved Ad: Jenni’s Story (she doesn’t like Romney)
Noon – 1:15 PM News and beginning of “Swift Justice”
Saw about half the news – no political ads. Didn’t watch the rest.
1:15 – 1:30 “Swift Justice”
No Political Ads
1:30 – 2:00 “Swift Justice”
1:39 Obama Approved Ad: My quote was taken out of context
2:00-2:30 One episode of “Divorce Court”
2:15 Obama Approved Ad: 2 Plans
2:23 Obama Approved Ad: Jenni’s Story (she doesn’t like Romney)
2:29 Obama Approved Ad: My quote was taken out of context
2:30 –3:00 One episode of “Judge Alex”
2:46 Obama Approved Ad: 2 Plans
2:56 Obama Approved Ad: Jenni’s Story (she doesn’t like Romney)
2:58 Obama Approved Ad: My quote was taken out of context
3:00 – 4:00 Two episodes of Judge Joe Brown
3:29 Obama Approved Ad: My quote was taken out of context
3:59 Obama Approved Ad: My quote was taken out of context
4:00 – 5:00 Two episodes of Judge Judy
4:25 Obama Approved Ad: 2 Plans
4:31 Obama Approved Ad: Jenni’s Story (she doesn’t like Romney)
Romney Approved Ads:
4:17 Gilchrist Ad
5:01 What happened to the stimulus money?
In that hour there were two “anti-Obama” ads from American Crossroads that I don’t think even mentioned Romney and one “anti-Obama” ad from the New Majority that may have mentioned Romney.
I’m in Washington State. Would love to help you out Stephen, but, um, what’s a “local channel?”
Is that something like a highly restricted, lower quality YouTube?
I live in Iowa and Obama ads of all kinds can be seen at all times of the day. Most of the major channels as well as TNT and some of the other cable channels. CBS has a slightly higher volume that NBC or ABC. Some are done by PACS and those seem to focus on out sourcing or economy issues.
I’ve seen the singing Romney ad at least twice now. Last time was last night (7/27). I live near Elgin, Il.
I think he’s trying to make sure of his supporters. But it costs money, and that makes me smile since he should be running out about the time Romney is able to start spending. That, and people will have had a bellyful of his ads by then.
I’m Barack Obama and I approve of this guy’s singing or something like that.
Obama approved the ad. So not a super pac or whatever.
I sure wish I could sing as well as Mitt!
Seen on TNT, Falling Skies new episode (6 to 7 p.m. Pacific Time)