Opinion: Nielsen confirms: Mind-numbing volume of Obama-McCain ads

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All things being equal -- which, of course, they never are in capitalism -- it was swell this fall to own television stations in battleground states, especially places like Ohio and Florida.

Democracy’s been very very good for them.

According to a new study by Nielsen, then-Sen. Barack Obama’s 6/10ths of a billion-dollar moneypile enabled his campaign to buy 155% more local TV ads than the John McCain-Sarah Palin Republican ticket in the five months from early June to early November.

Californians and New Yorkers wouldn’t really know much about that, since the Democrats took both states for granted all campaign.

But, aside from ads purchased by the two parties and supporting organizations, Obama bought 419,667 TV ads in those five months while McCain purchased ‘only’ 269,992 ads, Nielsen reports.

Going back to January and not counting others in the candidate crowd, just those two guys bought about 850,000 TV commercials. You could burn up two new TiVos fast-forwarding through all that stuff.

McCain did keep pace with Obama on total cable and network buys -- 2,868 to Obama’s 3,004 from January until election day.

But the Democrat clearly outgunned the Republican in the last few weeks of those endless 30-second segments.

Mark Silva, who probably watched every single one of those campaign ads he’s so conscientious, has more detail on this incredible record ad spending over here at the Swamp.

Neither candidate has approved this message.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credits: Associated Press