Rovians Cutting Back on TV Spending

Still sunk at 2 a.m. in the gloom of contemplating four more years of this unusually gifted man currently occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I surfed the 'net all night and among my stops saw that Drudge was forecasting that the L.A. Times today was going to headline an article about the Bush campaign deciding to cut back on TV advertizing. (Why? I wondered, when they've got all the money in the world.) And so with the sun finally up this a.m. I went first thing back to Drudge to find the promised article, but didn't find the link. Then got distracted by other headlines and forgot about the phantom L.A. Times story until I just now ran into a reference to it on Kos, along with the link.

So here 'tis ... and it's worth contemplating ... since the analysis offered is that after spending $40 million at least already on TV, which was expected to be the preemptive Kerry knock-out blow (from a bunch that has raised preemption to sacramental levels), the Rovians are nonplussed to find the air wars have not after all pummeled the enemy into surrender and are pulling back to reassess and retool.

Here are some key graphs from the article:

...Anthony Corrado, an expert on campaign finance at Colby College in Maine, said that since March 4 -- just after Kerry in effect wrapped up his party's nomination -- Bush has bought about as much television advertising as past presidential candidates purchased for the entire general election campaign.

"And frankly," Corrado said, the president's campaign "didn't move the [poll] numbers that much."

He added: "The Bush campaign came out heavy, both in terms of volume and with some of their strongest attacks, and they didn't get a knockout."

A key factor blunting the ads' impact, analysts said, was the escalation of violence in Iraq and questions that have surfaced about the administration's antiterrorism efforts before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks....

But extensive polling by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey found that Kerry's favorability ratio was virtually unchanged from the start of March until its end in the 18 states where the Bush campaign has advertised. And the Bush advertising apparently has done little to affect the president's standing with the public.

The Annenberg survey found that Bush's favorability rating in the 18 states did not change during March....