Third party political action committees are stepping up their on-air presence in the presidential and in select congressional campaigns. In many if not most cases, they are doing what the actual campaigns would prefer to avoid: Going into full-bore negative attack mode. Rather than promote their own candidate, these groups generally try to take down their rival. According to an Associated Press report, ad flights from outside groups is thus far well behind the pace they established in 2004, despite the fact that a Supreme Court ruling in the Wisconsin Right to Life case seemingly opened things up a bit for such organizations. According to AP, the necessary multimillionaire and billionaire backers for such groups appears to be in shorter supply this year. Additionally, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama asked such groups from the left to stay on the sidelines, a request many have been honoring. However, a report at Talkingpointsmemo.com notes that Democratic leaders outside the Obama campaign have privately been urging such groups to go ahead and get into the fray to counteract others working on behalf of Republican candidate John McCain, particularly when it comes to negative attack advertising.
RBR/TVBR observation: One ad leads to another, especially when polling indicates that the race is tight. Battlegrounds are everywhere. This should be a wild finish.
