Earlier this week, I thought I heard that both campaigns were suspending their ads until after the funeral for President Reagan. I thought it was entirely appropriate and showed a modicum of class from both camps.
On Fox News a couple minutes ago, I just saw a Bush ad touting the improving economy, then closing with comments that
That’s just the first one you saw, doesn’t mean that it was the first one that aired.
My understanding was that “suspending campaigning” meant cancelling appearances, not cancelling advertising.
Teri, I thought I’d heard they were pulling ads as well. Or maybe just Kerry was. I thought it was tacky, regardless, to segue from Reagan lying in state to “Kerry is a doodyhead.”
J.
Yeah, it was… But there has been a lot of tackiness in this election. And I think Teri is right. I dont remember them commiting to suspend ads, just events. I do think though, and I admit being partisan on this, that Kerry has conducted himself with much class this week.
The problem is that they had already committed to run those ads. Some, not all, media outlets can agree to change the timing of the already contracted for ad buys but that is a real problem for most. An outlet that says, sure, we’ll stop running those ads you contracted for will be faced with both a short-term disruption in their schedules and a long term disruption as they try fo fit those ads into time that has already been contracted for by car dealer’s July sales and suchlike.
One would probably expect to see more Bush ads, not because of any lack of class, but because of the steadier fundraising allowing longer term contracted ad buys.
The nature of Kerry’s fundraising being more dependent on smaller numbers of large donations makes these same long term contracts less frequent. They tend towards ‘burst’ ad buys as those large donations come in and as they arrange big events.
Imagine that I, in my personal life, resolve not to spend any money for a period. What does that do to the regular house and car payments, the utility bills and other contractual obligations?
I saw a story elsewhere on this – apparently Bush and Kerry both pulled their official ads, but Soros/MoveOn/ANSWER all stepped up their own ads attacking Bush. The Bush campaign took that as de facto breaking of the agreement by Kerry (given that Kerry’s wife funds many of those organizations and speaks at their rallies, it’s not entirely unreasonable to think so) and cranked theirs up again.
Kerry said he’d not hold any live events/rallies–but he did say his ads for the week would continue to run.
Yes. What I read specifically noted that ads were going to run as previously arranged.