First advertising shot fired in 2012 presidential campaign

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It seems like the final broadcast advertisements from the 2010 midterms are still echoing in the atmosphere, but already, an ad flight that is being labeled the first of 2012 is being shown to Iowans. It’s from prospective Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger.


Karger has some impressive paragraphs on his resume, including working on the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

However, he is not your run-of-the-mill Republican. He is openly gay and his early pitch, announcing his consideration of a presidential run, calls for an end to the rancor in Washington, including a willingness to work with Democrats, and also solicits donations. He will need to drum up some cash if his thoughts about running are to come true.

He is seeking $5M to seed his campaign, and to get the ball rolling, he will be running his 90-second ad on Fox News Channel in Iowa for a week. According to Politico, he is spending $100K on the effort.

RBR-TVBR observation: We have to be totally honest. There are two ways of looking at this development. As private citizens, the premature arrival of the 2012 campaign is mildly annoying (at least we don’t live in Iowa or New Hampshire). But as advocates for broadcasters, this isn’t such a bad thing.

The danger, of course, is that political advertising fatigue may drive some viewers to program sources that are far away from those politicians favor. And incessant political ads can also drive core non-political advertisers elsewhere for their marketing needs.

But we would be really surprised it we see anything more than isolated outbursts of advertising aimed at 2012 for some time.