Just a few observations about the various forms of paid political outreach going on out there these days.
As we know, there's some yard signs out there, and I'm starting to see more of them as well as some bumper stickers. I've now seen my first two Obama yard signs, one in my neighborhood and one someplace else - can't remember where. (I've also seen a few signs for HD134 GOP hopeful Carlos Obando, each of which makes me do a double-take.) One way to tell that it really is voting season is the disappearance of truly empty lots - they've all sprouted signs like toadstools after a weeklong rain. The lot at the northeast corner of Shepherd and 59 is particularly overflowing as of this week.
I've gotten precious little direct mail so far, which is odd because as someone who's voted in every Democratic primary and runoff for the last decade or more, I should be drowning in it. I don't know if candidates are eschewing mail for other forms of contact, or maybe they're all in transit, but it's still a bit weird. Anyone else out there getting mail?
As our home TV viewing is excessively skewed towards commercial-free Noggin, I haven't seen many TV ads - I caught a snippet of an Obama ad while at a Comcast storefront to swap out our malfunctioning cable cards (don't get me started on that), and I saw one each for Hillary, Obama, and Ed Emmett while Tiffany had the Channel 11 6 o'clock news on last night. What else are you seeing out there?
And finally, one radio spot so far, for Obama on Jack FM. I'm particularly allergic to radio ads and tend to switch stations when the music stops, but this one got me. I figure the AM stations are where the action is, but I almost never tune those in.
So that's it for me so far. What's on your radar?
Posted by Charles Kuffner on February 20, 2008 to Election 2008I've been getting mail like crazy... mostly judicial candidates (and one from Ellen Cohen). I guess I just started counting as a 3D, so I'm getting a lot of mail I didn't previously get. I typically only listen to the radio to and from work, but I did hear an Obama ad yesterday morning.
Posted by: Souperman on February 20, 2008 6:41 AMRadio - I had the radio on 97.9 KBXX, the rap station, and there was an Obama ad. Sounded like his NH speech with jazzy music set to it, and an African American voice doing the "paid for by the Barack Obama Campaign, early voting yadda yadda yadda".
Later that day, on 102.9 I think, a spanish music station, there was the same ad only with a hispanic voice reading the early vote info in spanish. Obama's voice in english, everything else in Spanish.
Posted by: joe on February 20, 2008 10:39 AM