Over the past several days as the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts heated up, the available "inventory" of advertising spots to buy from the TV networks dried up.
And then disappeared entirely.
On cable we here at the Tea Party Express were not able to purchase any additional local spots. Zero. None. Nada.
Before the TV stations ran out of spots they were jacking their rates ever higher and higher. The cost for TV ads in the state skyrocketed to the point of costing around the same price as NATIONAL TV Ads.
And then it hit us: why not go and buy our spots on the NATIONAL cable networks. If they are going to cost almost as much, and if we can go buy ads that will run in Massachusetts (but that Martha Coakley's campaign had not thought to buy) - then it's a fantastic opportunity for us!
So this put us at a great competitive advantage over Democrat Martha Coakley's campaign.
Here's why: When you watch cable television networks you'll see commercial blocks. Each time commercials come on they are part NATIONAL and part LOCAL. Local operators are given so many spots to sell to local advertisers, and the rest of the spots are for NATIONAL advertisers.
Since the local cable systems were "SOLD OUT" of advertising spots, then the only way to reach voters via cable channels was on NATIONAL programming.
But Martha Coakley, Barack Obama and company failed to realize this. So we went up on the air nationally - adding dozens more TV ads to our buy, while the Democrats in Massachusetts were locked out of buying any more ads on those same cable channels.