Going Big

The Obama campaign is trotting out a $5 million Olympic ad buy. Considering that they can make that kind of scratch in an afternoon if they put their mind to it, it's a good move. The Olympics sucks up a lot of oxygen in the country and a Presidential candidate can't afford to go essentially dark those two weeks, so I'm glad he pulled the trigger. Bob Dole actually tried this in 1996 but he ended up buying one multi-minute ad - this appears to be a whole package including daytime coverage, so the idea is to find as many eyeballs as possible.

And I think the goal of this is to really raise his profile everywhere and help the downticket races, particularly in the US Senate. Obama's coattails should be able to bring significant percentages of new voters into the process, and just a slight uptick in places like Mississippi, which has a contested Senate race, could make a difference. And the Democratic campaign groups are more than ready to buttress the opportunity Obama presents, as they're flush with cash. We're already seeing statewide ad buys in Oregon, and talk of $5 million ad buys in Maine and North Carolina in the fall. Combine that with an exponentially larger number of paid staff, and you can understand why GOP Senators are nervous as hell:

Republican Senate leaders — terrified by the prospect of losing five or more seats in November — have freed their members to vote however they need to vote to get reelected, even if that means bucking the president or the party’s leadership.

On at least four votes over the past month — Medicare, housing, the GI Bill and the Farm Bill — Republican leaders haven’t even bothered whipping members to toe the party line or back President Bush’s veto threats. Instead, a GOP leadership aide says leaders have told vulnerable senators that it’s all right to “get well” with voters by siding with Democrats on anything but energy and national security.

That offers a moment to enact some decent legislation if the Senate so chooses, and also to push the GOP into really damaging votes. This actually started with getting the housing bill passed, as now seems likely, over a threatened veto. There's some garbage in that bill, like the Fannie and Freddie bailout, but there's also some real help for homeowners, as well as $4 billion in grants for local communities to buy up housing in devastated neighborhoods, which will be very beneficial. There's talk of a new economic stimulus focusing on infrastructure, too, another good idea in the main.

But the real point here is that Obama is doing a nice job pushing his advantage, and now this continues CULTURALLY, by branding him during the Olympics. This is a very smart move, and I'll bet the polls will bear it out from now to the Democratic Convention. He's already got McCain on the ropes (a win in Florida would be a knockout).

I get more optimistic by the day.

...That said, I would like to see the ads push the envelope a bit. Obama's ads have been stunningly conventional throughout this cycle, particularly the Presidential ones. He needs to have a bigger message than the small-bore "I worked on one wonky issue area" ads that we've seen thus far.