2014 Advertising Assault Begins Now

Good news for Denver’s media outlets. The television assault for the U.S. Senate seat has begun.

Given 2014 looks like 2010 “light,” observers assumed U.S. Senator Udall could have a close re-election. Then on February 26, Congressman Cory Gardner got in the race, and political judgment, backed by early polls, make it a one- or two-point race.

The first million-dollar TV ad buy came from the Koch Brothers attacking Udall on Obamacare. Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Senate Majority PAC respond quickly with commercials calling the anti-Obamacare ad a lie and Gardner the tool of the insurance industry. Now, a million-dollar campaign from the mostly Democratic League of Conservation Voters PAC begins the expected attack on Gardner for his environmental positions and being the tool of gas and oil interests.

We are approaching $3 million in expenditures, the Koch Brothers are preparing another blast, and it’s only mid-April.

Some observations:

• The early advertising model was developed in the Obama campaign’s attack ads against Mitt Romney in May and June 2012. Before Romney was even near the formal nomination (end of August), Obama was hammering him as an out-of-touch plutocrat – Romney’s image never recovered.
• For all their complaining about money in politics, Democrats tend to have and spend more than Republicans. The first wave of Colorado attack ads are more against Gardner than Udall.
• In 2008, President Obama said good-bye to federal campaign spending subsidies and limits, received no real criticism for it and never looked back. He outspent both John McCain and Romney.

This model; i.e., big money, massive TV, negative advertising and starting early, is here to say. Hang on Colorado.