At 6:28 this morning, I saw the 60 second Bush ad on the local morning news show (the one station--ABC--we have in this podunk; for those who have cable other networks come from Iowa, Illinois, or Kansas City). I was like "shit, that's pretty good media". But Bush's media "bounce" lasted all of sixty seconds. Later in the same commercial break came the MoveOn.org overtime ad, a good neutraliser.
But worse yet for the Bushmeister, 6:30 (immediately after the overtime ad) came, and the top local headline was about an area town of less than 5,000 population that just found out the biggest employer in town (a Dura plant) was closing down and taking 270 jobs with it. The announcer put it as "yet another area plant closes down and devastates the community". Interviews with residents and workers drove home the misery.
Last but not least, 6:45 came, time for the national ABC network news brief. Top story there: some kind of spike in long-term unemployment. No amount of paid media can avoid being swamped by that kind of free media.