Glen Johnson of the Associated Press reported yesterday:
“Attorney General Tom Reilly, decided to pull his TV ads for the Labor Day weekend.
Corey Welford, a Reilly spokesman, did not dispute that the ads were being put on hiatus this weekend but said he would not comment on Reilly’s ad strategy.”
What strategy is Reilly using? Are his campaign coffers running low? It is somewhat surprising that Reilly’s campaign would voluntarily give up 3 precious days of advertising his message across the state with only 2 weeks and 3 days before primary day especially in light of the fact that both of his opponents, Gabrieli and Patrick will be on TV all weekend.
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That is interesting and surprising Greencape. Maybe $ are tighter than anticipated, but I have no clue on this one.
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When one factors in the rain coming through later today and early tomorrow, it might hurt more than usual as people will be inside more than outside (i.e. more opprtunity to see/watch TV than typically is the case on Labor Day weekend). Monday is also one of those big marathon days (e.g. Law and Order).
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Perhaps a Reilly supporter like Mav Dem can provide additional perspective.
For any campaign money is always tight (except when candidates are multi-millionaires) and I’m sure this is true with the Reilly and Patrick campaigns.
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Why by time over Labor Day Weekend when people are away and not paying attention. Take the money you placed for Labor Day and send it the last weekend before the election.
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Of course Reilly only reported about $30,000 raised in the first 15 days of August…so they maybe spending down is $3 million kitty faster than expected.
As the article points out, the Reilly campaign opted to save its money over a weekend when TV viewership is traditionally quite low in order to expand its ad buys starting Tuesday.
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Sounds smart to me.
No one is up full throttle in July/August and then goes dark for three days with just over two weeks to go – unless they miscalculated projected cash flow for the stretch run. Reilly’s recent inflows have slowed to a trickle and he has been pushing his ads hard the last 6-8 weeks – perhaps the cash in the bank is drying up a bit.
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This 3-day period may be the slowest window between now and Election Day, but it is certainly busier than most of the past two months. The rule of thumb is typically to calculate how much you need to stay up strong the last 2-4 weeks and then work backwards from there.
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Not only has Reilly matched Gabrieli on TV since July 4th, some estimates actually indicate that he pushed more $ into TV ad buys than Gabs since then. Going dark now “to save its money over a weekend when TV viewership is traditionally quite low in order to expand its ad buys starting Tuesday” may be “smart” in a vacuum, but why not go dark for parts of July to stay up now when viewership is higher than the height of summer? It is 7:51 now. Since 7, I have seen Gabrieli 3 times and Patrick once. The comments in the article from the Reilly campaign and the comments here sound more like spin than “smart” political strategy. Sorry.
Let me see if I get this straight, Tom Reilly goes on TV in the months of July and August. These are arguably the 2 best weather months of the year and a time during which we know that people are away on vacation and less likely to be paying attention. But he pulls his ads off the air with a little over 2 weeks to go because it is Labor Day weekend, a rainy labor day at that?????? A lot of peoople that I know opted to stay home because of the weather and the need to prepare their children for schoolthis upcoming week. In fact, I held a sign at a Gabrieli visibility this morning and was surpeised to see as much traffic both car and foot) as I did.
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Not to mention that Reilly’s campaign made it very clear that once Reilly was on TV, he would be on TV to stay until primary day.
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Also, while I readily admit that Chris is the wealthiest man running for governor on the democratic side, there are two democratic multi-millionaires in this race, namely Gabrieli and Patrick. Patrick has chosen for the most part not to spend his personal wealth. And while Tom Reilly is certainly not a millionaire he had raised a record amount of money for his campaign war chest. Post convention, Reilly has pretty much spent dollar for dollar with Gabrieli.
It was just called to my attention that the Lowell Sun is running a sraw poll on their web site:
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If the election were held today, which Democratic candidate would you vote for?
Total Votes = 210
Chris Gabrieli 28.09 %
Deval Patrick 49.04 %
Tom Reilly 22.85 %
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And this (Greater Lowell) is supposed to be REILLY territory!
And it probably disadvantages Reilly. I trust this about as much as the Caralis Poll.
Despite what some in the Deval camp may think, Chris Gabrieli does have energized, enthusiatic supporters. Last night, Michael Forbes Wilcox commented in the post Reilly Surges Ahead in a New Poll. This post was a tongue and cheek comment about the many governor’s race polls. Michael Forbes Wilcox took this opportunity to comment on a Boston Magazine unscientific, online poll about the Massachusetts Democratic primary. A link to this poll was kindly provided by Mr. Wilcox so I checked it out. The results of this unscientific, unreliable poll have changed and in the fairness of full disclosure I thought that the updated results should be posted again….and there’s more
greencape :: Gabrieli’s Grassroots
The Boston Magazine Poll
Who will you vote for in the Democratic primary?
Total Votes: 9736
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Chris Gabrieli 64% (6273)
Deval Patrick 33% (3214)
Tom Reilly 2% (195)
None of the above 1% (54)
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While I will admit that this means nothing with respect to the primary day outcome, it does show that Chris has entusiatic support and that Reilly’s people are not energized
How the online poll changed so dramatically after the post about it. I wonder if an email went out to supporters to fix the problem. Online polls are worthless because of the games the campaigns play. As a matter of fact, I think most polls are incapable of measuring true voter intent. I never answer a poll accurately. I’m sure I’m not alone.
Freep this poll! and provide a link.
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Done.
I thought that Gabrieli had no supporters????? Glad to see that you are finally getting in touch with reality. We’re out there and we are working hard on Chris’ behalf. To constantly deny and ignore this fact is offensive to every Gabrieli volunteer.
But this Boston Magazine poll can be voted in as many times as one chooses, rendering it completely useless.
It would be interesting to see if they return with a new ad, or just the same ads they were originally going to run this weekend. If they’re changing ads, that opens up other possibilities for the reason they might’ve stopped running the current ones.
I think it’s new…a sequel to the previous 60-second, again featuring Watertown.
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going off the air is a sign of running out of money. There’s no way to spin it any other way.
Some times admitting you have lost is a smart move. Maybe Tom Reilly is withdrawing slowly so as not to attract attention to his campaign. If this is even happening the only people who will notice are the small percentage of people statewide that watch politics and they will begin seeing his forces slowing withdrawing or not moving at all. I personally do not believe it is a money issue with Reillys campaign, but more an issue of do we want to keep wasting it on a lost cause.
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Is this a new way of describing the rhythm method?
I would not know I do not understand birth control. I have six children.
Hey, I recognize that name, are you who I think you are? Welcome to Blue Mass Group!
Hope you are well Cos.
Here’s a longshot, but a possibility:
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Weeks ago people filed a formal complaint against Reilly’s campaign over coordinating with Killer Coke.
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It may be that phone records were subpoened and Reilly’s campaign will be formally charged–in which case he might just bow out. It would be hard for the sitting AG to continue a campaign when his own staff broke the law.
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In which case, why waste the money on spots?
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Good question roboy3. Obviously something is going on and to pull TV ads 2 weeks out is bizzare. A reporter needs to ask three questions; 1. Is your campaign broke? 2. Are you going negative? or 3. Are you getting out of the race?