Campaigns Finally Get Blogs – Cash Cows

It is becoming increasingly clear that the political mainstream has
finally gotten a handle on the Blogosphere. Its where the money comes
from. From the Kerry to the Edwards to the Bush campaigns, frantic efforts
are underway to tap into the Dean Internet "El Dorado" and harness the
power of the cybersphere for — funneling funds to the Major Media companies!

Just as the Dean campaign did, the Kerry, Edwards and Bush crews are
taking the millions that true believers are sending them in response
to internet organizing, and handing it directly to media consultants,
advertising agencies and the 5 major media conglomerates.

However, it seems to the Dowbrigade that this formula carries less than
a 100% guarantee of success. Look at Dr. Dean. All the advertising in
the world isn’t going to convince the public that Michael Jackson isn’t
weird. And the quality of advertisements themselves is open to serious
question.

Although none of the campaigns is wasting a dime on the predictably
"progressive" Massachusetts voters, since most of the State of New Hampshire
watches the local Boston TV stations, we were treated to the full smorgasbord
of political delicacies. Most of the advertising we have seen on TV so
far has been tepid at best, and
often
borderline
demented.
Do
we
really
need
to hear
Edwards
hype his "Two Americas" 500 times? Why do we need to know that Wes Clark
has a softer, gentler side? How could Howard Dean possible burn through
$50 million dollars with absolutely no effect except to hasten the hard
ride down?

Apparently it is difficult to predict the exact effect advertising
will have on the target market, at least without long and arduous test
marketing and analysis, which takes more time than the accelerated political
calendar allows. For example, as we write we are semi-watching, in the
background, over the screen of our iBook and our crossed feet at the
end of the bed, a commercial.

It is a commercial for Nutri-Grain. It features a hapless office nerd
who doesn’t have time to eat a real lunch and who wanders into a meeting
hungry. All of the other people at the meeting are acting normally but
around their waists they have huge DONUTS, like tractor inner tubes,
all glazed and coated with colorful cremes and juju’s the size of D-size
batteries. If only he’s eaten a Nutri-grain bar!

The Dowbrigade is hungry, but this ad doesn’t make us want to rip the
wrapper off a Nutrigrain Bar. Rather, we are seriously thinking about
a run down
to Krispy Kreme…..

"He uses the Internet almost exclusively for fantasy baseball," said
campaign spokesman Jason Sauer, who added that he wasn’t sure whether,
until recently, Chandler even knew what a blog was.

But that was before Chandler’s campaign turned a $2,000 investment
in blog advertising into over $80,000 in donations in only two weeks.
Chandler
— who won a seat
in the House of Representatives Tuesday evening — definitely knows what a
blog is now, Sauer said. "It’s that thing that brings in money."

Read the
sad story "Blogs
Pump Bucks into Campaigns," from Wired News