| McCain | ||
| Colorado | $237,000 | $858,000 |
| Florida | $1,441,000 | $4,615,000 |
| Indiana | $336,000 | $1,248,000 |
| Iowa | $429,000 | $298,000 |
| Minnesota | $176,000 | $499,000 |
| Missouri | $437,000 | $1,105,000 |
| Montana | <$1,000 | $175,000 |
| North Carolina | $537,000 | $1,094,000 |
| New Hampshire | $60,000 | $643,000 |
| New Mexico | $223,000 | $309,000 |
| Nevada | $357,000 | $850,000 |
| Ohio | $753,000 | $1,984,000 |
| Pennsylvania | $1,388,000 | $2,742,000 |
| Virginia | $637,000 | $2,450,000 |
| Wisconsin | $202,000 | $1,084,000 |
Source: American Spectator:
Some of this looks pretty odd to me. For instance, why the apparent play for Iowa? Yes, it’s cheap, and Obama isn’t spending there because he thinks he has it in the bag but…well, he does have it in the bag. Between the base and operations Obama built during his primary and McCain’s opposition to ethanol, it was always THE wobbliest 2004 red state. And yet Sarah Palin is going there AGAIN the day before the election. It’s also been obvious for months that New Mexico was a goner; McCain hasn’t dumped many dollars there, but surely all of them could have gone to better use…well, anywhere else. Other then that, the spending distribution makes some sense. Penn and Florida are getting the largest share of resources and McCain has seemingly abandoned states like NH and severely cut back in Colorado. Still it’s hard to escape the feeling that if McCain really hoped to turn Penn blue, and really that’s always been his best blue state target, he probably needed to reach at least spending parity with Obama there.
Update: According to a Conference Call, McCain expects to outspend Obama in the closing days. Ad Blitzkrieg in Penn, Ohio, and North Carolina?
October 31st, 2008 at 2:44 pm
According to their spending, the campaigns seem to think that Pennsylvania is closer than Ohio. Both spent more in PA than OH. Interesting.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Iowa is tied in internal polling folks.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:04 pm
By most accounts, the Dems are a little nervous about IA and NM. They are even more nervous about, PA, VA, CO and NH. The campaigning in Ohio is a token effort and their clowning around in FL is an act of desparation.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:15 pm
WiseGuy,
At some point I would really like to know how you come up with your information. If Iowa is truly tied in internal polls that is fantastic!
October 31st, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Iowa is close to tied. I believe Obama has a small lead there (less than 5 points). The Survey USA poll out of Iowa shows Obama with a 15 point lead. The party weightings for that poll at 45% Dem, 29% Rep. That’s ridiculous and an 18 point swing since 2004. If 2004 turnout shows up (which I don’t think it will, but it’ll be closer to 2004 than a 16 point gap) then that lead is only 2 points for Obama. That’s well within the margin of error and internals probably show the same thing.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
A financial analyst I used to read once claimed that postage—the price of stamps—predicted inflation more accurately than the government number, because the government is always going to charge as much as the market will bear to recover their own costs regardless of whatever they claim about how low inflation may or may not be.
Similarly, if the polls and how campaigns spend their money seem strangely inconsistent, what can we conclude? Where the campaigns invest their treasure is either an index of their complete insanity or they made their decisions based on data that we don’t have access to.
Money is an exceedingly scarce resource for the McCain campaign. Doubtless they want the maximum ROI for their every campaign dollar.
ON THE OTHER HAND, McCain may be doing his GOP duty for downticket Repubicans, which would be good too.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:49 pm
What’s up with Wisconsin’s spending about the same as Colorado?
And New Hampshire’s anemic spending?
???
October 31st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Well, that just shows you that you can buy a Presidency. Whatever happened to the good old days?