In the age of Citizens United, when unlimited cash can be spent on political advertising, when you have two campaigns that don't want to miss a single opportunity to reach any and every voter, this is what it comes down to for the residents of Denver and Colorado.
Come on over the squiggle to learn what it's like to try and see television at this point in time here in Denver.
In an article posted in USA Today, as well as at the website for the local Denver NBC affiliate KUSA TV, they have shown just how many advertisements have been made on-air for this election.
If you were watching TV in Denver last week, you noticed a lot of political advertising. President Obama and former governor Mitt Romney have aired more than 26,000 ads in the swing state capital.
These advertisements are also not just randomly placed. They are scientifically targeted to reach the voters who will be sympathetic to the candidates. Not just the party members, but the voters.
Ads are targeted not just to partisans but to partisans who vote, Feltus says: CBS' The Mentalist not only skews Republican, but 70% of them are likely voters. 60 Minutes viewers are more likely to be Democrats who vote. Undercover Boss viewers are disproportionately Republican, but vote less than average. Ditto Democrats and WWE Friday Night Smackdown.
There are many interesting points about media philosophy leading up to the election - where to target money, how much money, what might be saturation and I found it rather interesting, though we have about worn out the commercial skip button on my DVR.
One more point I wanted to bring to you from the articles, which are well worth reading, especially if you're a political or media junkie, is the point that the media purchased by the Obama campaign, because it is by the actual campaign and it also has to be available for purchase, costs less than media purchased by the super PACs who have to pay list price and who have to take what's available. Thus, this gives specifics to the story we've been seeing on DKos about how Obama's money goes farther than the money favoring Rmoney.
This article also only focuses on the Presidential race. We have no Senators up for election this year, but we do have some hotly contested Congressional seats. Joe Miklosi is running in CD-6 to unseat Mike Coffman, the Republican Tea Party sympathizer who inherited Tom Tancredo's seat now that redistricting has changed the makeup of the district and made it more balanced. Ed Perlmutter of CD-7, a Democrat who has picked up some of the old red CD-6 in that same redistricting, is being challenged by Joe Coors, of Coors Brewing Company, and the media war in both campaigns has been hot and heavy for awhile. Sal Pace, a Democrat running to try and unseat Republican Scott Tipton in CD-3, the western rural part of the state where Representative John Salazar lost in the red wave of 2010, has been airing commercials for awhile in Denver, which are rebroadcast throughout the state. I haven't seen any ads for Scott Tipton. Show some love to the candidates - Miklosi to turn a seat from Red to Blue, and one to keep a very good Democrat Perlmutter in office instead of a homophobic outsourcer in Joe Coors. The money will be spent fighting the media war.
The end result of all this is, the citizens of Colorado are being inundated with waves of campaign advertising. If you truly want to watch all this, you're made of stronger stuff than I am. I actually noticed the CBS affiliate the other day have a 15 second spot where they had a logo spinning in place and it said on the screen "15 second political advertisement free zone" or something like that. Living in a swing state, where two of the country's ten swing counties are found, with the first presidential debate tomorrow evening scarcely a day goes by without someone from one of the two campaigns making a swing through the state. All I can say is, November 7th can't get here fast enough. We'll get out the vote, but when it's over, I hope we can go back to furniture, cars and food advertisements.