Monthly Archives: November 2008

Politics and the Media

By Mike Johnson

Those professional political consultants who told us 18 months ago that 2008 was going to be an election of seismic change should raise their retainers.

How many elections compare:  Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Reagan?

This was as historic as those and in some respects maybe more so.  This election produced transformational change:

  • in the way we elect our leaders, who elects them, and how they raise their money;
  • in the direction in which the country is headed, both domestically and internationally;
  • in the two parties, how they define themselves and how they now approach the incessant, interminable quest for political power.
  • in our society where change that has been occurring gradually for sometime, but never really appreciated until now.

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Money swears

By Gary Andres (reprinted from the 10/30/08 Washington Times)

Is Obama buying the White House?

A Republican activist I know had to mute his television while watching the Washington Redskins game last weekend. The constant barrage of Barack Obama advertising only intensified his growing depression. “It’s like a bad ’80s song,” he told me. “I can’t get the tune out of my head.” Hitting the mute button wouldn’t stop this Republican’s gloomy political music, but all those so-called reformers concerned about money in elections aren’t singing a lot these days either.

The Washington Post reported last weekend that the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party spent $105 million in the first two weeks of October. The Illinois senator’s campaign alone doled out $82 million during that period for paid media – more than four times what Sen. John McCain spent during that same period, and half as much as Sen. John Kerry invested in television for his entire campaign in 2004. That kind of largess spurred other unprecedented moves, like last night’s 30-minute network ad buys.

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