Advertising Costs Big Buck$ for Political Campaigns

When most people think of politics one of the first things that comes to mind is money. In my portion of this blog, I'm going to discuss the economic foundations of media and politics. Politicians are often criticized for the amount of money they spend on their campaigns. During, political campaigns and election years, a large sum of money is spent on advertising alone. Just recently, The New York Times wrote an article about the criticisms Barack Obama was receiving due to the amount of time he was spending fund-raising for his 2012 presidential campaign. According to the article by Mark Landler, “Mr. Obama has attended 108 fund-raisers since filling his candidacy in April 2011, double the rate of George W. Bush at a similar point in his re-election campaign”.

Political cartoons often times are a great medium to show the public opinion on campaign spending. This one I found on CartoonStock successfully sends their message regarding campaign spending:

 Political cartoons seem to always appeal to the public opinion and this medium is popular because they do so in a humorous way. Another area of interest I found in my research is that during the primaries specifically, advertising costs are much more hefty. In a Washington Post article on the subject by Jack Gillum, he looked closely at the Republican Presidential Candidates to see how much money they were spending on ads during the primaries. Furthermore, he created a formula to determine the ad spending per each primary vote, only accounting for television advertisements. For Mitt Romney, the ad spending per vote was $12.70, Rick Santorum $3.01, Newt Gingrich $4.78, and Ron Paul $6.33. Clearly, Mitt Romney is focusing on getting his message out through the medium of television ads, which has always been a popular tactic among campaigns.

            An NPR segment focused on the amount of money candidates were spending in general on their campaigns in 2010 congressional elections and found it totaled to about $4 billion dollars.  In addition, they found that spending is up 80 percent from the last election, showing just how much they are trying to get their message out there to the public. As we’ve learned from class, there is a limit on the amount of money spent on campaigns put forth by the Federal Election Commission, but loopholes have been created to get the money that is necessary.

            Evidently, advertising has a huge impact on a campaign’s outcome, as well as its' wallet. In my upcoming blogposts I will discover the other economic aspects of politics in the mass media.

Sources:

Gillum, J. (2012, March 15). How ad spending among republican presidential candidates stacks up per vote. The Washington Post.

Landler, M. (2012, March 17). Obama faces criticism over time spent fund-raising. The New York Times.

Overby, P. , & Inskeep, S. (2010, November 2). Tracking the money spent on campaign ads. NPR.

Federal Elections Commission. www.fec.gov