At the end of September, Minnesota had the unlikely distinction of being the only state in which John McCain was spending substantially more money than Barack Obama on TV ads. It was a test to see if McCain could put a blue-leaning state in play.
But, according to The New York Times, the experiment is ending. Now Minnesota is on a list of five states in which McCain is shaving his ad spending.
By the way, if you read the Times piece by Jim Rutenberg to the bottom, you’ll also learn why so many McCain ads over recent weeks switched back and forth between shots of Obama and shots of Harry Reid/Nancy Pelosi, suggesting that you can’t count on “liberals in Congress” to restrain Obama’s bad impulses. I assumed this was trying out the argument that electing Obama was especially dangerous with Democratic majorities in both houses. Probably was. But it was also a special kind of political ad, known in the political business as “hybrids,” that blend a message that helps McCain with a message that helps congressional Republicans, and the cost of which can therefore be split between McCain money and national Repub money.
