WASHINGTON — Howard Dean poured millions of dollars into television advertising in Iowa and New Hampshire in a futile effort to knock out his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination in January. Wesley K. Clark mounted a multistate ad blitz for several February contests, but bombed in all but one.
Dean, a former Vermont governor, and Clark, a retired Army general from Arkansas, left the race with the dubious distinction of having outspent all their rivals on television advertising.
Now, as the Democratic nominating battle nears a possible March climax, Sens. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina have chosen a narrow TV battleground: Georgia, Ohio and upstate New York. Their ad campaigns are bypassing four New England states, plus Maryland, Minnesota, California and metropolitan New York, -- where the bulk of the delegates will be at stake Tuesday.
The very nickname of the March 2 contests, "Super Tuesday," evokes comparison to the Super Bowl, with its TV commercial sideshow. Yet it now appears that most Democrats who vote or caucus next week will not have had a chance to see a single Kerry or Edwards commercial.
The modest TV tactics used by Kerry and Edwards and the spectacular flops of big spenders Clark and Dean show a surprising development of the 2004 Democratic campaign: TV ads matter far less than many experts thought they would.
"In terms of actually determining who's going to win a particular election, probably we do overrate television," said Lee Sigelman, a campaign advertising analyst at George Washington University. "What most defines campaigns are a few pivotal events, something truly major. The day-to-day flow of advertisements on television, it's just kind of noise."
Few analysts or strategists could have predicted that TV ads would prove more important in the Jan. 19 Iowa caucuses than in the 10-state, coast-to-coast battle that will be waged next week. Yet that apparently will be the case.
The most significant head-to-head TV ad battle of the campaign so far was fought between Dean and Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri. In dueling attack ads days before the Iowa caucuses, Dean faulted Gephardt for supporting the Iraq war and Gephardt questioned Dean's commitment to Medicare. Both paid a price. Gephardt dropped out Jan. 20 after finishing fourth; Dean was severely wounded with a weak third-place finish. There have been few overtly negative ads in the weeks since, and none from Kerry or Edwards.
