POLITICS

Putting Millions on 'Red'

"If Obama is successful in carrying some of those red states, he's the smartest guy in the room."

by William Schneider

Sat. Jul 26, 2008


The Obama campaign is doing something unusual: It's running ads in red states.

The Campaign Media Analysis Group, a division of TNS Media Intelligence, tracks candidates' ad purchases across the country. "Obama's buying right now in over 20 states, including North Carolina, Georgia, North Dakota, and Montana--states that you just don't talk about Democratic presidential candidates targeting," said Evan Tracey, CMAG's founder and chief operating officer.

Take Georgia, Indiana, and Virginia--three states that Republican presidential nominees usually count on. The Obama campaign has spent at least $1 million so far on TV ads in each of them. The McCain campaign? Nothing in Georgia. Nothing in Indiana. Less than $1 million in Virginia.

Polls show that national security is the area where Democrat Barack Obama is weakest. By nearly 3-to-1 (72 percent to 25 percent) in this month's Washington Post/ABC News poll, voters say that McCain would be a "good commander-in-chief of the military." And Obama? They're evenly divided, 48 percent to 48 percent.

Obama's red-state ads try to burnish his national security credentials--and play up his willingness to work with Republicans. Obama says in one ad, "The single most important national security threat that we face is nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. What I did was reach out to Senator Dick Lugar, a Republican, to help lock down loose nuclear weapons."

Does Obama really expect to carry the red states where he's advertising? Well, maybe. A Republican administration as unpopular as President Bush's creates opportunities for Democrats everywhere.

But there's another reason: money. Obama's fundraising is far outpacing McCain's. In June, Obama raised $52 million, while McCain collected $22 million. McCain will accept public funding for the general election; Obama will not. So, after the Republican convention in early September, McCain will be limited to spending $85 million. For the Obama campaign, the sky's the limit. Obama wants the battlefield to be as large as possible. Fifty states!

In Tracey's view, "If he can make those red states competitive, and John McCain has to spend money or time in places like North Carolina, Georgia, Montana, and North Dakota after the Republican convention, that's time and money McCain can't spend in the must-win battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan."

Right now, the Republican National Committee has raised more money than the Democratic National Committee. If you add together the party money and the campaign money, McCain has slightly more cash-on-hand than Obama ($95 million compared with $92 million). McCain has to spend $28 million of his total (the money raised by the campaign rather than the party) before September, when the spending limits attached to public financing will kick in.

But McCain is not spending his money in the red states. According to CMAG, he is outspending Obama in the traditional battleground states: $3.3 million versus $2.2 million in Ohio, $2.6 million versus $1.8 million in Michigan, $4.3 million versus $3.1 million in Pennsylvania. If McCain can restrict the playing field after the GOP convention to a limited number of battleground states, he will be able to minimize the impact of Obama's money advantage.

McCain's message to voters in those battleground states sounds like this: "I'm not George Bush." In one McCain ad, the announcer says, "John McCain stood up to the president and sounded the alarm on global warming five years ago. Today, he has a realistic plan that will cut greenhouse-gas emissions."

So far, McCain is not taking Obama's bait. He's not running defensive ads in the red states. But if Obama succeeds in pulling ahead in some red states, McCain may have to start spending money there.

Obama's red-state investment is a low-risk proposition--unlike, say, candidate George W. Bush's buying ads in California in 2000 with money that might have been better spent in Florida. "If Obama is successful in carrying some of those red states, he's the smartest guy in the room," Tracey said. "If he's not successful, nobody's going to say, 'Well, he could have spent that money someplace else,' because money is probably not going to be a concern for his campaign as you get close to Election Day."