Media Advertising on the Republican Side

The Republican field in the 1st District has raised considerably less money than the Democratic one. Political newcomer Dean Scontras has raised about $ 230,000 and has loaned his campaign nearly an additional $ 100,000. Charlie Summers, who only returned from Iraq a month ago, has raised about $ 200,000, but retained more cash on hand as of May 21st.  

The Scontras campaign made a decision to not purchase any advertising time on television. In a recent Portland Press Herald article, Scontras aide Dan Schuberth said that the campaign decided to focus on radio advertising and direct mail. This is absolutely a poor decision by the Scontras campaign and speaks to the complete mismanagement that has plagued his campaign. Unlike all the other campaigns, the Scontras campaign did not build up its cash reserves during the 4th quarter of last year and the 1st quarter of this year. In fact, it had a staggering 87 % burn rate in the October 1-December 31, 2007 fundraising period.  

Airing television ads was absolutely critical to Scontras' success in this primary. As a political newcomer, Scontras desperately needed to boost his name identification. Radio advertisements and direct mail are great tools, but not using television was a mistake for the campaign. On May 21st, Scontras reported just $ 7,000 cash on hand remaining, even though his media buy and direct mail spending only totaled about $ 45,000. Unless he makes additional loans to his campaign, he has virtually no money left to spend.  

Charlie Summers is not spending substantially more than Scontras, but he simply does not have to. As an experienced politician in Maine, Summers already has relatively high name identification in the 1st District. As of May 21st, Summers also retained a significant amount of cash, which he has probably plowed into additional advertising time and direct mail.  Below I have listed the media buys purchased by the Summers campaign:

May 13- Purchased Media Buy of $ 8,975 
May 19- Purchased Media Buy of $ 5,885
May 21- Purchased Media Buy of $ 42,500

So, by May 21st, the Summers campaign had purchased nearly $ 60,000 of advertising time on radio and television. With more than $ 50,000 still in its coffers at the time, the campaign may have purchased more time since then. The campaign has been airing one ad, which effectively shows the breadth of Summers' experience. It touts his experience as a state senator, as the regional director of the Small Business Administration, and as a U.S. military serviceman.  The ad was produced by Stevens, Reed, Curcio, and Potholm, a top notch media production outfit that created the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads in 2004. 

One must wonder how the Scontras campaign managed to waste so much money. Dean Scontras is a very articulate candidate with great ideas and a great vision, but his campaign has put him in a position where it will be very hard to win the primary and impossible to win the general election. I will look tomorrow at how the Scontras campaign got into to its current financial mess and what could have been done differently.