Saturday, August 23, 2008

Obama Pulls Ads In Indiana

After spending money like a drunken sailor in Indiana on campaign ads, the Obama campaign not only chose to pass over Sen. Evan Bayh as his veep choice, it's also pulling his ads here--at least temporarily. Two polls taken within the last week show Obama trailing McCain here by six percentage points. He actually lost ground here in the polls after his massive ad buy, which was not matched by the McCain campaign. The AP reports:

Barack Obama began scaling back TV advertising for the convention week, pulling ads in Republican strongholds in the South and Mountain West to concentrate on ad wars with rival John McCain in battleground states.

But Democratic and Republican officials familiar with Obama's ad purchases said the campaign had decided to pull ads from Alaska, Indiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Montana and North Dakota during next week's convention. Two Democratic officials, speaking not for attribution because they were not authorized to discuss ad strategy, said the campaign intends to return to those state airwaves the following week. Obama has already pulled ads in Miami, but there were conflicting reports on whether he planned to silence his ad presence in the rest of Florida.

It looks like Obama's 50-state strategy has been scrapped for a traditional battleground state approach to the campaign. The South looks like a big losing proposition for Obama. A recent poll in the region shows McCain leading in 11 southern states by a 16-point, 51%-35% margin. Obama's decision to pass over Gov. Tim Kaine (D-VA) could signal that his campaign is virtually writing off the South. Virginia and Florida are the only two states in the region where Obama is running close behind McCain. His choice of Biden, a Scranton, Pennsylvania native and a Catholic, suggests Obama's campaign is on the defensive. Recent polls show Obama with a narrow lead over McCain in the Key Stone state, a must win state for any Democratic presidential candidate.

8 comments:

Covenant60 said...

I think McCain has a real opportunity here to put this election away by picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for VP. She is young, attractive, tough, pro-life, pro-NRA (and can handle an automatic weapon---the ads would be great), pro-military (her 18 year old son joined the US Army this past 9-11). She is also pro-drilling.

Obama completed his dissing of HRC this past month by selecting the usual old white guy to join his ticket. Another snub to millions of women who are getting increasingly sick and tired of being told "not yet" by men.

By picking Palin, McCain will satisfy the Right, fire up evangelicals and NRA adherents, and really gin up the GOP faithful who would see Maggie Thatcher in
Palin. Not only that, he would be firmly giving many HRC voters (not to mention just plain ole women who are not HRC zealots... but just want to see a woman on the ticket with a chance to win) a real good reason to cast their lot with a solid team.

Biden can at times be real good mano a mano (!) in debates. But I think that Palin adds a whole different dynamic to a Biden/Palin debate matchup, and would more than hold her own against him. I think the dynamic would result in her wiping the debate floor with him.

If McCain wants to show he is a maverick, he needs to say "not this time" to the usual white male suspects, and show the fairer half that he means business.

Check out this Youtube vid on Sarah Palin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_vaH2BjVeA

artfuggins said...

Obama opened 11 new offices in Indiana today..that doesn't sound like a campaign that has given up!!

Nick said...

I remember reading in Nixon's memoirs where he said his 50-state strategy in the '60 race was a big mistake. He was wasting time campaigning in states he'd easily win or had no shot at winning--and in the end he didn't lose by that much.

Obama should have learned from someone else's mistakes.

And besides, Obama isn't really opening up his own campaign offices in Indiana. He's just borrowing space from the state and county parties just as other statewide candidates do.

artfuggins said...

Nick, obviously you have not been to any of the Obama offices. i know of none that are housed within the already existing party headquarters.

Wilson46201 said...

Obama just opened his 2nd office in Indianapolis yesterday at 1810 Broad Ripple Ave. The main Obama office is still at 850 N. Meridian.

The Indiana statewide Obama campaign is run out of the Indiana State Democratic headquarters at One N. Capitol. The local Democrats are still at 603 E. Washington -- the André Carson for Congress office now operates out of there too.

Covenant60 said...

I hope he opens 11 more offices in Indiana, and fully staffs each one with paid workers.

Anonymous said...

The office in Lafayette is totally separate. You really need to get out of the 465 loop now and then, Gary and check things out.

By the way, I'd like to see him pick any of his possible choices... Romney (Two Rich White Guys), Ridge (Pro-Choice), LIEberman (I lost as VP Cand on TWO Party Tickets), Tim (WHO?) Pawlenty or even Sarah (WHO?) Palin....

Palin would be great... how does she manage to do well on Foreign Policy or even able to step into McSame's shoes without being sexually harassed by him?

artfuggins said...

Sarah Palin is undergoing an investigation for allegedly firing her former brother in law......when he divorced Palin's sister.