| I'm still quite pleasantly surprised by this first TV ad from the Madia campaign, especially in light of the late news that the National Republican Campaign Committee has reserved ad time in the district (its Democratic counterpart, the DCCC, has already reserved considerable time).
I'm also a little surprised the NRCC looks this worried about the district. The DCCC has a crushing cash advantage over its Republican counterpart, and the NRCC simply does not have the resources to be throwing into questionable districts like these. That committee's first responsibility is protecting vulnerable incumbents, of which the Republican Party currently has many.
All this, despite the fact that Republican candidate Erik Paulsen has spent the vast majority of his time so far raising money instead of formulating specific platform proposals and communicating with the people of the 3rd district -- the NRCC is THAT worried that they're going to commit scarce resources to a toss-up open seat?
Madia is kicking ass and taking names right now. If the NRCC does go through with its ad buy, we know what it will contain: questionable claims against Madia's campaign, 10-year-old quotes from when he was a student government member at the U, maybe even some good old-fashioned swift-boating of his Marine service (which will not be taken kindly). But on the issues, Madia is winning right now, in terms of setting the initiative of the campaign he's winning, and if there's any bounce from his hitting the airwaves to increase his name-recognition, he'll win the ad wars too when the NRCC starts thinking it's a lost cause and pulls back its ad buy.
That scenario, my friends, is by no means out of the question. |
