It's going to be a long 8 months

February 23, 2004

The NY Times reports that Bush will begin running campaign ads in March, whether the Democrats have definitively selected a candidate or not. Expect to see a glut of Bush ads, since Bush raised $12.9 million from his donors last month alone. The Daily News reports that the Bush campaign has met its $150 million fundraising goal and has $104 million in the bank. My advice: get a DVR (TiVo, ReplayTV, etc) to avoid excess unnecessary exposure to campaign ads.

Why is Bush starting to run ads so early? Take a look at poll numbers: Kos: Kerry, Edwards kill Bush in NH, Newsweek has Kerry 48-45 over Bush and Edwards even with Bush.

Bush can afford to run many more ads than any of the Democrats. All candidates filed campaign finance statements with the FEC at the end of last week.

In total, all nine Democrats have raised nearly as much money as Bush:

However, the Democrats have spent much more in the competitive primaries:

Source data: Bush, Kerry, Edwards, Dean, Clark, Lieberman, Gephardt, Moseley Braun, Kucinich, Sharpton