WSJ: The Obama campaign has spent about $6.5 million on TV advertising in Florida, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a unit of media tracker TNS Media Intelligence. In part, the spending can be attributed to the Democrat's late start there. He refrained from campaigning in Florida during the primary season after the Democratic Party penalized the state for holding its primary early.
A spokesman for Sen. McCain declined to discuss why the campaign hasn't run TV ads in Florida, but said the Republican is investing heavily in the state and is doing well. "We've got offices across the state and a very robust operation," said Jeff Sadosky. "That's a state where we won a primary."
Sen. McCain does get some exposure to Florida television viewers through national buys on NBC during the Olympics and on cable news channels.
By this time in 2004, President Bush's re-election campaign had spent $13.5 million on television in Florida. The president went on to win the state in November.
Sen. Obama's ads have touched every media market in Florida, which is the most expensive for advertising among the closely fought states. In total, Sen. Obama has spent about $36.6 million on television ads across the country since the end of the Democratic nomination fight, with Florida so far taking the biggest share of any single state.
Obama also has ads in traditional red states:
The Obama campaign is alone on the airwaves in North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia and southern Virginia. Republican presidential candidates have done well in those areas, but the Obama campaign is hoping to turn them Democratic this year. Meanwhile in some traditional battlegrounds, such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, Republicans have outspent Democrats.
Sen. Obama's campaign says many voters don't know the Democratic candidate well, and two of the four Obama spots now in rotation focus on his biography. "We had to start from scratch," said Florida Obama spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh.
"They are coming in early when it's cheaper to be on TV," said John Sowinski, a Republican strategist in Orlando, Fla. "And they are determining if it will be worth it to push things in Florida later on."
