The Money Trap

Hillary Clinton may be poised for a comeback on Tuesday.

The reason for that is a truth that even the Netroots have yet to acknowledge.

TV ads can be counter-productive.

This is an artifact of a changing media landscape. As the new medium rises, the old media is disbelieved. This is not news in the commercial world. It's only news to those who follow politics.

Remember 40 years ago when conservatives started railing against the "liberal media" and "liberal Hollywood," just as they were becoming a majority? Same thing. Agnew (and his muse, Safire) were reflecting attitudes which were already abroad in the world, in the new majority they spoke for, that TV was believable and "older media" was not.

The same thing is happening now. We believe what we see and read on the Internet, and discount what comes over the TV. Especially the ads.

Don't believe me? Then explain how John McCain, who was grossly outspent by his rivals, especially Mitt Romney (but before that Giuliani and even Thompson) rode to his party's nomination?

Ironically, Obama and his Netroot supporters are now falling into that same trap. Obama spends heavily to seek knockout blow, says The New York Times. They're trying to crush us, moans a pro-Hillary blogger. Yet Texas tracking polls show Clinton gaining, even though the efforts of a pro-Clinton 527 group meant for TV ads has been abandoned.

Sure, you need enough publicity and infrastructure to reach your voters but what if, after a certain point, TV ads are now counterproductive? It could keep this Democratic nomination fight going all the way to the convention. The media will write that Hillary has "found her message," or that her advisers must know something. But maybe Obama just overplayed his hand. Maybe he just bought too much TV.

Now it's possible this "Hillary bounce" is just a head fake. But that wouldn't disprove the thesis I just gave. Obama is also spending heavily this week on energizing his Web infrastructure. He's activating all the people his databases can reach, in the states with primaries, and driving them to bring people to the polls. Early voting is way up, way, way up across the board, and it could be that polls aren't showing how effective this effort is.

If it is true, that TV ads are losing their effectiveness, it means that Republicans are going to be really, really crushed. Everything I've read about their strategies for the fall involve huge amounts of money spent on TV ads, through what are called 501(c)4 organizations. These ads have already begun to air (below). But what if they're counter-productive?

Don't get me wrong. Money is still honey. But money has to be spent in the right way to be effective. Pounding out a bunch of 30-second ads for your candidate, regardless of their message, won't do the job. The right way to spend money is on building your infrastructure, on Internet organizing which can activate your base in many different areas, which understands who can do what and doesn't ask them to do something else.

In short, on CRMs.