This weekend, I saw my first Republican Super PAC ads on broadcast television. It was a pro-Romney ad that said Obama didn't create a single job as a community organiser, or a professor, or a senator. Romney is the guy who knows how to create jobs. He apparently just chooses not to.
My opinion has always been that the first side to employ campaign ads takes a huge psychological hit just by virtue of people hating campaign ads to begin with.
People get to be very good at tuning out campaign ads, so there is definitely a point of diminishing returns. With the use of TIVO and the highly-convenient "mute" button combined with the judicious use of the "channel" button, one can avoid them effectively. There is only a small window of opportunity before the reflexive defences kick in. Right now, the Democrats seem to be winning the narrative, and the polling supports that. We should be able to tell relatively soon how effective this advertising is based on polling numbers over the course of few weeks in markets where it's been employed. If there isn't significant movement, it would seem to me that advertising in general won't be very effective in the coming months. The Republicans are heavily relying on unlimited Super PAC donations allowing them to saturate the airwaves and coerce voters into voting for Romney by sheer force of will.
I think that the majority of the people have already made up their minds, and those that remain see it more as a personality contest. On the personality front, Obama wins over Romney. They can't make Obama scary. It was already tried, and nobody bought it before. At least, not enough people to make difference. So they have to make Romney the guy that you really like. Good luck with that, 1%.
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