"I'd consider it malpractice in political ad-making not to have the stuff ready and for us to be prepared to be engaged," Devine said. He acknowledged, however, that the ads are announced "to engage in the free media" -- meaning to garner publicity -- regardless of whether they wind up airing.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, said that Kerry aides "shouldn't imply they're going to air something if they're not." But she called the coverage "a failure of journalism to ask the question we ought to ask about every single ad: how much and where."
Two of the Kerry ads released last weekend -- one attacking the Bush administration's handling of flu vaccine, the other accusing the president of a plan to slash Social Security benefits -- have not aired.
Another ad that has not been broadcast responded to a Bush spot that showed Kerry windsurfing in opposite directions by describing American casualties and beheadings in Iraq and accusing the president of running "a juvenile and tasteless attack ad." Still another included footage of a Bush ad slamming Kerry's health care plan, citing media accounts that the Bush attack contained "outright fabrications."
The Kerry campaign has also made small ad buys to draw headlines. On Sept. 25, the Kerry camp released a commercial -- in response to an anti-Kerry ad on terrorism by the independent Progress for America -- that accused Bush of "despicable" and "un-American" politics. It aired only on a Washington cable station.
On Oct. 11, the campaign put out an ad that said: "After nearly four years under George Bush, the middle class is paying the bigger share of America's tax burden and the wealthiest are paying less." A Kerry spokesman said it began airing only yesterday, in Minnesota. An ad about Vice President Cheney and Halliburton has run only five times, in Oregon and Harrisburg, Pa.
Even if a Kerry ad directed toward a journalist influences 100 regular people, their influence is still out numbered by the vast number of average Americans. Plus, that's running on the assumption that everyone is going to vote the way that Kerry and the "influenced journalist" tells them to.
It's out-and-out DNC/K-E Campaign coordination with the willing and complicit, CFR-abusing media! In the stretch, the pliant media are better and cheaper than any 527!
The Dims know how much inefficiency there is having multitudes of their sychophants converting faxed talking points into news items. Here, they cut to the quick, get rid of the middle-men, and save TV (and radio) broadcast outlets all that drudgery. Just like the typical ploys of the Left, they love to make people beholden to their freebies, giving recipients the opportunity to slack off and not break a sweat, which means generating "fair and balanced" news stories will inherently take more time, effort and money than simply airing the Kerry campaign spots.
It's abuse and corruption!
We'll definitely need overhaul in this area, come the next Congress!
HF