Mitt Romney’s campaign, in the beginning, was focused on criticizing President Obama for the way he handled the economy during his entire presidency, which Republicans consider to be a complete disaster. However, in recent weeks Romney’s campaign has changed, and has started to criticize Obama in various other aspects. Freedom of religion and the welfare reform are some of the new topics that have appeared in Romney’s campaign.

Many members of the Republican Party have been complaining that economic criticism won’t be enough to take Obama out of the White House. These Republicans think Romney should press Obama in more controversial areas, and that’s what Romney’s latest ads are doing.

The ad called ‘Be not afraid’ accuses President Obama of declaring “war on religion, forcing religious institutions to go against their faith.” An example is that catholic sponsored entities like schools have to cover contraceptive methods in their employees’ insurances. The ad says that Mitt Romney is the one who truly “shares your values.” This is an ad dedicated to some of the Republican Party loyalists. The ad’s final statement is very suggestive: “When religious freedom is threatened, who do you want to stand with?”

Republican consultant Keith Appell stated “I understand the economy is the top issue, but you don’t want to be so maniacally focused that you ignore everything else.”

He added that “”there’s always a risk of becoming too focused — a horse with blinders — and not seeing some of the other things around you. Campaigns need focus. But there’s something to be said for peripheral vision when you’re trying to hold a coalition together.”

Romney needs to raise the  social conservatives’ enthusiasm and religious voters that preferred a figure like Rick Santorum and have been skeptical with Romney. But, in the end they will vote for him, because they are not willing to vote for Obama. Ads like the religious freedom one are the type of things that will definitely excite the Republican’s conservative base, which has been very quiet during the campaign so far.

Also, a recent Mitt Romney ad called ‘Right choice’ recently accused Obama of trying to gut Clinton’s welfare reform, which required recipients to work to receive welfare. The ad claims that Obama is intending to drop the work requirements. The Obama campaign has defended the accusations with another ad called ‘Blatant.’ ‘Blatant‘ quotes the New York Times and the Washington Post, saying that Romney’s ad accusations are false.

The ad continues saying that what Obama is in fact doing is “getting states to move 20% more people from welfare to work” requirements. The Obama ad quotes Bill Clinton, saying Romney’s ad is “just not true.” Obama’s ad is being shown in seven key-state battlegrounds.

Obama’s campaign counterattack against Romney hasn’t taken long to be seen. An ad called ‘Son of boss,’ which criticizes Romney’s tax record, has been released.  The ad narrator questions how much Mitt Romney has really paid in taxes, whether that be 10%, 5% or 0%. The answer of the narrator is: “We don’t know.”

The article Romney Attacks and Obama Responds appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Baltimore, U.S.A. — A new survey commissioned by MGH, an integrated marketing communications agency, found that 32 percent of survey respondents change the channel as soon as a political advertisement airs and during political news coverage, and nearly half (47 percent) of viewers will change the channel or mute the TV during a negative political ad. The Baltimore agency commissioned the survey to find if consumers change their viewing habits during election season.

Not surprisingly, the vast majority — 88 percent — of survey respondents said they are turned off by negative political advertising. Additionally, when looking at the age breakdown of younger millennials aged 18-24, the survey found slightly higher percentages:

• Forty-five percent change the channel during political news coverage.
• Thirty-nine percent change the channel as soon as they see a political advertisement.
• Twenty percent are more likely to watch programs online, and 19 percent are more likely to record programs they want to watch to avoid commercials.

“This year’s election is gearing up to be a tight race, and with tens of millions of advertising dollars being put toward mudslinging political television ads, marketers need to pay attention to some of these statistics to make sure that their consumers aren’t changing the channel on their clients,” said MGH President, Andy Malis. “During election years, television advertising space is limited and more expensive, so advertisers need to get creative and integrated with their media campaigns to ensure their message is getting through the clutter.”

According to a recent New York Times article, at least $50 million worth of ads will appear in swing states in the next several weeks — about five months out from the election.

About the Survey

In April 2012, an online survey of 1,000 adults aged 18+ – who had seen at least one political advertisement recently – located in states where presidential primaries had taken place was conducted by Equation Research. The margin of error — which measures sampling variability — is +/- 4 percent. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.

The article Survey Reveals Over 30% of People Avoid Political Ads appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Every local broadcast station has a repository of documents about political advertising that you have a legal right to see but can do so only by going to the station and asking to see “the public file.”

These paper files contain detailed data on all political ads that run on the channel, such as when they aired, who bought the time and how much they paid. It’s a transparency gold mine, allowing the public to see how campaigns and outside groups are influencing elections.

But TV executives have been fighting a Federal Communications Commission proposal to make the data accessible online. They say making the files digital would be too burdensome 2014 it “could well take hundreds of hours for a single station,” according to comments filed with the FCC by the National Association of Broadcasters.

Others have taken their case a step further. As reported by Bloomberg Government, Jerald Fritz, senior vice president of Allbritton Communications, said in an another FCC filing that online availability “would ultimately lead to a Soviet-style standardization of the way advertising should be sold as determined by the government.” (NPR’s On the Media did an excellent segment recently on broadcasters’ opposition to the proposal.)

We tend to like the idea of public data being online. Since TV stations won’t put it online themselves, we decided to do it ourselves 2014 and we want your help. Working with students at the Medill journalism school at Northwestern University, we looked at five local stations in the Chicago market.

You can explore the results yourself: Here are detailed breakdowns of when the ads aired, during which programs, and how much each spot cost: Read the documents from the local affiliates of ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and CW.

Big thanks to Medill students David Tonyan, Julie O’Donoghue, Vesko Cholakov, Safiya Merchant and Gideon Resnick, who visited the stations Monday.

We intend to enlist more readers in checking their local stations as the election campaigns slog on. The general election is likely to usher in even greater spending, and such spot checks could keep an eye on how big spenders are influencing the election. If you’d like to join in, please fill out this form.

Campaigns and super PACs are required to report their spending on independent expenditures to the Federal Election Commission within a day or two, but they often just report how much they paid ad-buying firms, which can disguise how much actual ads cost and where they’re airing.

What’s more, the files could be a window into what may be otherwise undisclosed spending by “dark money” nonprofit groups that are playing an increasing role in the elections .

For our experiment, we asked our Chicago volunteers to check on spending by five super PACs that individually support Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama. There were no records of spending in Chicago by four of them, but Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney super PAC, advertised on all five stations. The super PAC paid the five stations about $800,000 in the past month.

As our PAC Track interactive chart shows, Restore Our Future has spent more than twice as much as any other PAC so far 2014 nearly $37 million. Medill student O’Donoghue said getting the files from the ABC station took her about half an hour, most of which was spent wrestling with the copy machine. Tonyan, another graduate student, said he spent 15 minutes at the CW affiliate, plus a 15-minute drive.

Both said the station employees who helped them were friendly and accommodating. We encountered the same when I visited five stations in New York, Missouri and Florida. Typically, a station employee will simply show you the room where the files are kept and let you dig in. Such visits don’t seem to happen often. A log at the New York CBS affiliate showed only six registered visitors since October 2011.

The Campaign Media Analysis Group, a unit of Kantar Media, tracks ads that have hit the airwaves and estimates what they would cost, but the company charges high rates to obtain the information. The Wesleyan Media Project publishes some CMAG data.

Rich Robinson, executive director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, found that $70 million in advertising had been unreported from 2000-10 in Michigan. He got that number by personally examining public files, at one point driving 14 hours for a 15-minute visit to a station.

He told the FCC: “I can testify to you, unequivocally, that the threshold of effort necessary to report this important public interest story is too high for every news organization in Michigan, except mine.” Which is why we’re asking for your help. You can help expose spending that might otherwise remain hidden in your television market. Sign up here.

by Daniel Victor ProPublica, March 20, 2012, 3:29 p.m.

Image Courtesy of  Frontpage / Shutterstock.com

The article If TV Stations Won’t Post Their Data on Political Ads, We Will appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.