ELEPHANT-DONKEY.com

POST said 04/24, 09:32 AM
Election 08 is undoubtedly a historical one in all respects. The kind of fundraising we've seen by the candidates has never been seen before and clearly the purpose of those funds is to purchase trust of voters through advertising.

Hillary's biggest defence is that she was outspent by Barrack in PA 3:1 and in other primaries before that. It is a fact. My understanding of this ratio is that for every advert by Hillary, there were three of Obama???s. That does not come free. That costs a lot of advertising money.

Image is everything in this game. Barrack was an unknown two years ago. Today we have one of the most popular politicians in America. He can give credit to the media, in particular advertising. He has spent a lot of money building his image through marketing.

No one can doubt the power of advertising to sell products and creating markets. That is exactly how these candidates have done in the past. They present themselves as products and entice us to buy into their vision and positions.

POST said 04/26, 02:22 AM
I will stick to the topic which basically narrows the whole issue to PA. Hillary had a 30 point lead in PA in January. Its a state in which she enjoys a lot of support from different demographical groups. She has strong roots in that state. All indication were that Hillary was going to sustain that lead. How does someone chip into that lead by over 20 points. Infact, polls were already giving her 5 or less points win which would have thrown her campain down the drain. How did Obama pull that off, MONEY=ADVERTISING. I think people there didn't know much about Obama and had perceptions about him. Hillary was also feeding them fear and lies about the guy. I'm aruging that Obama was saved by Advertising and Marketing in PA. Had Clinton sustained her 30 point lead, It would have been chaotic for Obama camp.

The advertising platforms helped him to articulate he position, clear the lies and position himself as a unifier and an agent of change and hope.

Nothing new obviously about all the above, then why do people switch from Hillary to Barrack. Repeated messaging tends to influence peoples' decision making and because he had as much money at his disposal, he managed.

POST said 04/27, 06:55 AM
I always move from the premise that through advertising, one can craft the message clearly without the possibility of misinterpretation. With rallies and public engagements, you rely largely on the analysis of reporters who mostly hold different views.I also think that if we depended on Obama's rallies to get a sense of who is he and what he is about,a lot of people would miss the key message as not even a 1/4 of voters attend those rallies.Again the possibility of those messages coming out of those rallies reaching the targeted audiences depend on the sound bytes of the media and how accurate they are.

The following is my assessment, most people who attend the rallies are people who are already in the bag for Obama (same as Clinton), mostly students from Universities. For him to get new voters he needs to reach out to those people through the media (ads)

I looked at the demographics after the polls closed in PA.Clinton outclassed him on blue collar voters, seniors, and whites. He managed to keep the affluent, educated and black voters (all 3 Obama groups in isolation).

His spending on ads made a lot of difference for him, though others believe its bcoz he went negative