Posted by Jed Lewison on Thu Jul 31, 2008 at 8:54 PM Pacific

McCain's Landstuhl attack aired only 12 times as paid ad

Somehow this passed me by:

With Commercial, McCain Gets Much More Than His Money’s Worth
By JIM RUTENBERG - Published: July 30, 2008

WASHINGTON — The number of times Senator John McCain’s new advertisement attacking Senator Barack Obama for canceling a visit with wounded troops in Germany last week has been shown fully or partly on local, national and cable newscasts: well into the hundreds.

The number of times that spot actually, truly ran as a paid commercial: roughly a dozen.

Result for Mr. McCain: a public relations coup that allowed him to show his toughest campaign advertisement of the year — one widely panned as misleading — to millions of people, largely free, through television news media hungry for political news with arresting visual imagery.

Does the McCain campaign have to report this as an in-kind contribution?

McCain's Landstuhl attack aired only 12 times as paid ad

Somehow this passed me by:

With Commercial, McCain Gets Much More Than His Money’s Worth
By JIM RUTENBERG - Published: July 30, 2008

WASHINGTON — The number of times Senator John McCain’s new advertisement attacking Senator Barack Obama for canceling a visit with wounded troops in Germany last week has been shown fully or partly on local, national and cable newscasts: well into the hundreds.

The number of times that spot actually, truly ran as a paid commercial: roughly a dozen.

Result for Mr. McCain: a public relations coup that allowed him to show his toughest campaign advertisement of the year — one widely panned as misleading — to millions of people, largely free, through television news media hungry for political news with arresting visual imagery.

Does the McCain campaign have to report this as an in-kind contribution?

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