Advertising Age' s "Campaign Trail" blog reports that the 2008 presidential primary campaign had its first million-dollar television advertising day on December 10. Evan Tracey has the details:
The spending is largely aimed at voters in just two states and the ads are, for the most part, positive. Further, this amount takes into account only broadcast TV. A quick examination of the numbers tells us a few things. First, the Hillary Clinton campaign is letting the wallet do the talking with $275,000 a day of ad spending in New Hampshire (where prices are driven up by the Boston market) and Iowa. Sen. Barack Obama, one of Clinton's main competitors, is deploying his resources to Iowa, New Hampshire and some South Carolina but on a somewhat smaller scale, around $100,000 less. Former Sen. John Edwards is spending less than Obama, and has focused his ad spending on Iowa and South Carolina. On the Republican side, Mitt Romney is still leading the TV ad wars in two categories: the number of states and the total dollars spent, with just under $250K a day in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. Sen. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani continue to spend heavily in and around New Hampshire with around $150,000 a day apiece. Mike Huckabee, who has had a recent surge in the polls, is spending a paltry sum of $10,000 a day in Iowa. Fred Thompson, Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo continue to plug away with buys in the early states as wells.
The magnitude of Huckabee's achievement - from nobody to first in Iowa and battling for first in national polls - is stunning when you consider just how little he has spent in paid television. However, that low number also means Huckabee may not be able to defend himself against the negative ads that are surely coming - ads that will be less like this week's lame effort from the Romney campaign on immigration, and more like the effective Club for Growth-financed spots attacking Huckabee's fiscal record.