John McCain, Sarah Palin and their supporters like to point out how much of a "socialist" Barack Obama is. How un-American! How evil!
Yeah, well, what kind of socialist turns down free government money as Obama's campaign did?
Further, what kind of socialist singlehandedly signals the possible demise of a longstanding government gravy train? More below the fold:
By any standard, this is astonishing:
The Illinois senator's campaign is projected to have spent $250 million on ads in the last four months — a number that is equivalent to $750 million in a full year. Only AT&T, with a yearly advertising budget of about $1.3 billion, and Verizon, which shells out $950 million a year on ads, spends more than the Democratic presidential nominee.
But most major companies spend far less than Obama, including McDonald's ($588 million), Sprint PCS ($482 million), T-Mobile ($404 million), Target ($388 million), and Wal-Mart ($335 million).
In other words, Obama has not only widely outspent McCain in the marketplace, over the past four months he's outspent such corporate giants as McDonald's and Wal-Mart. Obama is third in advertising outlay among any entity in the country, surpassed only by two telco giants.
Oh yeah, we can definitely hear Barack now.
For you socialist-baiters, here's the best part:
"This advertising spending by Obama is big, and not just in terms of presidential politics but in terms of all commercial advertising – he has spent enough to be a mega-brand," CMAG's Evan Tracey said.
Obama's massive advertising budget is also a stark reminder of just how much it costs to finance a modern presidential campaign — and, predicts Tracey, it could just end the era of public financing.
As for Senator Grumpy and the Baroness, well, they took that public financing. You know, the socialist route.
Obama's campaign is funded by people like you and me, directly, of our own free will and accord. That's capitalism, John and Sarah. It does this libertarian Democrat proud.