Ad Wars between Presidential Candidates

The Washington Post has recently offered an innovative feature that basically displays important information on the political advertisements that are going on for the presidential election. The information available includes who is airing the advertisements, where the advertisements are being displayed, and how much the advertisements cost. This data provides insight on the advertising behaviors for both of the presidential candidates and their supportive groups. It shows how much advertising is going on and how many advertisements are actually being displayed to the public.

The general idea of measuring advertising varies. While some may measure advertising based on the amount of dollars spent, it is more ideal to look at the actual number of advertisements that are aired per presidential candidate. When it is measured in this way, people are able to get a better idea of what states are receiving exposure to the different candidates, especially depending upon how much television they watch and when they watch it.

The fact of the matter is that overall, President Barack Obama has definitely advertised more than his competitor, Mitt Romney. However, this advantage that he has had was eliminated by the different independent groups that are in support of the Republican Party, Mitt Romney. A large percentage of independent groups spent money for advertisements to be aired in support of Mitt Romney instead of supporting the current President for his re-election. Ever since April, a large number of anti-Obama and pro-Romney groups have sponsored more than half of the Republican advertisements that have been displayed on television. When compared with that of the elections in 2008, the pro-McCain and anti-Obama groups had only accounted for a mere total of 3.5 percent of the advertisements that were displayed.

Even so, Mitt Romney and those who are associated with the Republican Party have recently decided to do less advertising over the span of the past two weeks and it is for that reason that Obama’s advertisements have started to dominate. Many people find this quite interesting. Those who are in support of Obama may feel as though with his advertisements dominating, more people will steer towards voting for him as President instead of voting for the competition, Mitt Romney. However, supporter of Obama should not feel too excited just yet. The kind of effect that these ads have on people often goes away very quickly, which generally means that just because Obama’s advertisements have been dominating for the past two weeks, it does not mean that these voters will change their mind and choose to vote for him.