Obama 30-minute ad

His Finest Half Hour
Like “W.,” which I’ll get to in due course, last night’s Obama infomercial was a good deal better than I expected: excellent production values (take a bow, Davis “An Inconvenient Truth” Guggenheim), astute choices of families to represent the problems Obama proposes to address, a ratio of fluff to substance that was on the high side but still within the parameters of civic responsibility, a good selection of talking heads (including the C.E.O. of Google, whose support of Obama was news to me), not-bad Ken Burns-y music, and, of course, a dulcet-toned narrator. (Obama could make an excellent living as a voice-over artist.)

There was some preemptive criticism from Republicans and commentators to the effect that it was presumptuous of Obama to use his bulging bank account to commandeer a whole half hour of television time on three broadcast networks plus several basic-cable ones. He should wait till he’s actually President before he struts around making “addresses to the nation.” He was overdoing the pretend stuff, like when his campaign experimented with that faux Presidential seal. And so on.

Actually, back in the days when there was no Internet, no national newspapers, no nothing except three networks and a maximum of four unaffiliated television stations in any given market, buying a big block of TV time within a few days of the election was routine. The first political advertisement on the new medium ran in 1952, when Adlai Stevenson bought a half hour on CBS, displacing “I Love Lucy.” Bad idea. (To make matters worse, Adlai’s speech ran long, so he was cut off in mid-sentence. Embarrassing.)

What about the supposedly outrageous expense?

Well, according to TVweek.com, the Obama campaign spent $775,000 for the half hour on NBC and $961,000 for the half hour on CBS. That makes a total for those two networks of $1,736,000.

Obama’s half hour was the equivalent of sixty thirty-second commercials. The average price of a thirty-second prime-time ad on NBC is $102,928. On CBS it’s $116,729. Therefore, to buy a half hour in thirty-second increments"the usual procedure, at which no one bats an eye"on both networks would cost…let’s see…$13,179,420.

Thirteen million dollars. With enough left over for an extra thirty-second spot plus carfare. Compared to a million seven.

Am I wrong in thinking that this was a bargain? Or even that it might even be regarded as evidence that an Obama Administration might be able to rein in the budget by increasing efficiency and getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse?

Most good-government types agree that the thirty-second-spot approach makes for deplorable distortions. Almost as many agree that granting candidates extended blocks of uninterrupted TV time would be a lot better. Like the Obama campaign’s success in financing a campaign from millions of small contributors who can’t be suspected of trying to buy access, its decision to put on a half-hour presentation of its policy proposals approximates an important goal of reformers"and does it through the “private sector” rather than through government action. Remind me: who’s the conservative in this election?

One more thing about last night. Like Sarah Palin’s wardrobe, the Barack Obama Show was sharp, beautifully designed, and one hundred per cent positive.

Over 250k will lose their Bush tax cut. Of course, these are generalities.

You do realize that unless the tax cuts are made permanent, EVERYONE will lose their Bush tax cuts in the year 2010.

Well- doesn't any debt go down when you pay some of it off?

I would rather keep as much of my money in my pocket as is possible.

and I would rather have safe streets, clean drinking water, workable sewers, effective fire departments, national security, good education.

mysteryman wrote:

I would rather keep as much of my money in my pocket as is possible.

and I would rather have safe streets, clean drinking water, workable sewers, effective fire departments, national security, good education.

instead of paying the tax weasels to sniff out every single loophole and iffy deduction.

I would rather have safe streets, clean drinking water, workable sewers, effective fire departments, national security, good education.