Political Animal
Blog
This afternoon’s must-read is a piece by TNR’s Nate Cohn on the spending strategies of the two presidential campaigns. Nate devotes a good chunk of his time displaying research on the relatively small impact of paid media in presidential campaigns. He also notes the well-known decision of the Obama campaign to invest more, relatively, in GOTV “ground game” operations.
But the real gem in his analysis is this take on the strategic imperatives that have driven both campaigns in their chosen directions:
[T]he respective spending strategies might not just be a Moneyball-esque calculation about the relative effectiveness of air versus ground spending, but instead a cold reflection on the strategic imperatives facing each campaign. Obama holds a clear lead among registered voters and an unusually large gap between likely and registered voters has been responsible for a close race. If Obama’s ground game could narrow the gap, Romney’s deficit would become daunting. But unlike Obama, Romney probably won’t win on turnout alone. He trails among likely voters, can’t and won’t count on the wide gap between likely and registered voters persisting, and demographics don’t give Romney an unusual large untapped reservoir of potential new voters, so closing the gap will require him to persuade undecided voters, presumably with a barrage of campaign advertisements. So the Obama campaign has two routes to victory that appear consistent with their spending strategy: invest millions in a potential demographic trump card, while spending enough on the airwaves to keep Romney from sweeping undecided voters. And conversely, winning undecided voters is prerequisite to a Romney victory, so they’ve piled money onto the airwaves.
There’s no way to be sure whether Obama will benefit from superior turnout, let alone whether it would overwhelm Romney’s advantage on the air. But there’s not much cause to presume that Romney’s air campaign will pulverize Obama into defeat, either. The historical effects of ad spending are relatively meager, views of the president are deeply entrenched, and voters have already been exposed to a full presidential campaign’s worth of advertisements. Even in the plausibly competitive states where Team Romney ran uncontested advertisements, millions of dollars do not appear to have put the states into play. Given that Team Obama maintains a lead after being outspent by a two-to-one margin for two months, there is no reason to assume that a deluge of advertisements will hand Romney the lead in the race’s final hours.
Not that anyone much doubted it, but it’s clear you can expect Team Mitt’s closing ad barrage to be even more negative and mendacious than it’s already been. Other than maybe a loud ‘n’ proud defense of the Ryan Budget that would lock the slippery Mitt into a clear post-election agenda (which pretty clearly ain’t happening), the GOP base most wants a level of anti-Obama savagery that matches their own feelings. And it may be the only course of action with a chance of dislodging an unusually high number of undecided voters. Get ready for some Hateball.
Facebook
Twitter
stevio on September 11, 2012 3:26 PM:
Get ready for some Hateball.
Get ready? It's been hate ball since day one. If it gets any nastier methinks that Satan himself will be introduced into the GOP's TV blitzes with Sympathy for the Devil playing in the background (at least until the Stones nix it)
catclub on September 11, 2012 3:26 PM:
A two to one ratio of advertising spending is probably manageable.
During the primaries, Romney was outspending either Gingrich or Santorum by 7-1 or 9-1
BillFromPA on September 11, 2012 3:47 PM:
Perhaps it's true that, '..the GOP base most wants a level of anti-Obama savagery that matches their own feelings.'
I think, however, that the level of vitriol has reached the point of diminishing returns. The few undecided voters left are likely immune to an esclation of hate or actually inclined to turn away from Romney as the crazy gets out of hand. What have they got left, save what Lee Atwater rejected decades ago as producing a backlash?
T2 on September 11, 2012 4:03 PM:
I agree with Bill fromPA...everybody that cares and thinks has already decided that Romney is a loser and a liar. The rest are Republicans that will vote for him anyway because FOX tells them to. But to a fair extent, the Media will control how the final six weeks play out. If pundits and "journalists" continue to point out the lies, "misstatements", "inaccuracies", flip-flops, etc. like they have since Paul Ryan finally pushed them over the edge at the Convention, Mitt/Paul will not have a winning hand to play, since their campaign is built on easily proven lies.
T2 on September 11, 2012 4:07 PM:
While finishing the above post, I've noticed that Michele Bachmann's campaign has purchased an add on this WashMo web page....doesn't seem like a good way to spend her campaign money.
Mitt's Magic Underpants on September 11, 2012 4:18 PM:
More and more vicious hate may have diminishing (or negative) returns, but that won't stop them. Esp. SuperPacs. It is all the Rs have, besides lies.
c u n d gulag on September 11, 2012 4:39 PM:
People DO get sick of the same ads when they're on every feckin' commercial break.
I lived in NC in '08, and when I was on road trips where I didn't have a DVR, and had to actually watch the commercials - the same ones over and over - I was as sick of Obama's ads as I was of McCain's.
I can't find them right now, but there are a lot of statistics that prove that door-to-door efforts are much more effective in getting out the vote than ones by phone, and much greater than TV, radio, and other media ads.
Let the multi-millionaires and billionaires blow the easily-earned bucks on funding their Super PAC's, going from one door to another one, is much more effective.