With the crucial US midterm elections just days away advertising spending passed the 2 billion dollar mark this week, surpassing the advertising outlay of the 2004 Presidential elections.
The huge effort reflects the sense in both parties that Tuesday's vote could be a major turning point in the course of US politics. If the Democrats win, it could sound a death knell for President George W Bush's party and his policies, and above all, a rejection of his war in Iraq.
But if Republicans cling to control of the legislature, they could buy enough time for a new Republican presidential candidate to revive the party in 2008.
As the fiercely-fought campaigns splash out for air time, broadcast stations are gazzumping up the price, with one Los Angeles outfit reportedly raising its prices overnight by 25,000 dollars for a single spot.
It's all about supply and demand - and there's lots of demand: according to Nielsen Monitoring, there are 31 per cent more ads compared to the same mid-term elections four years ago.
'We can't keep up with the ad prices,' says Evan Tracey, who tracks political advertising spending for the TNS Media Intelligence's Campaign Media Analysis Group. 'It's uncharted territory because of the intensity.'
But it's when the 2-billion-dollar advertising figure is combined with other information that it becomes apparent how extraordinary this election is.
According to factcheck.org, a non-partisan political monitoring group at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, 91 per cent of all Republican ads are negative, 6 per cent are mixed and 3 per cent are mixed.
On the Democrat side, things are just a little better. Only 81 per cent of the ads are negative, 16 per cent are mixed and just 2 per cent are wholly positive.
But the numbers don't tell all the story, says the director of factcheck.org, Brooks Jackson. He has been covering Washington politics since the heady days of 1970, and says he 'can't remember an election race that's been worse.'
While the Democrats are no angels, at least their attacks are mainly on the political issues: linking candidates with George Bush and his Iraq strategy, with corruption in Washington and with drug companies and oil companies. The President is so unpopular, says Jackson, 'he's appearing almost exclusively in Democratic ads.'
One ad targets Philadelphia's Republican congressman Mike Fitzpatrick by linking him to some of Bush's most controversial decisions.
'Bush decided on Rumsfeld,' it says, showing the hugely unpopular US Secretary of Defence. 'Bush decided on Michael Brown,' referring to the official who botched relief efforts in Hurricane Katrina. 'Bush decided on Fitzpatrick.'
Another Democratic ad uses humour to focus attention on the politics of corruption in Washington. It features a Reality TV-style presenter offering 100 dollars to anyone who can read off a list of all the Republican officials charged or convicted of crimes. Needless to say, the 100 dollar bill is never paid.
The Republican ads have fewer, if any, redeeming features, Jackson says.
'The Republican mudslinging is on an industrial scale,' Jackson says. 'They've been out diving in dumpsters digging up petty, trivial stuff.'
That hardly does justice to some of the more sordid exploits of the governing party. In one race, it combed through the war novels of Democratic Senate challenger Jim Webb of Virginia to link him with deviant sexuality.
Another tries to taint Harold Ford from Tennessee with sexual and racial innuendo, or portray a former doctor as 'Dr Millionaire Know-it-all' for coming up with a plan to fix the country's health system.
'The Republicans are on the defensive,' says Jackson. 'They feel they have to attack with anything they can.'
The policy could yet pull the Republicans out of what otherwise appears to be an inescapable debacle. But it could also trigger a backlash against the Republican style of excess that has gotten the country where it is today.
'Research shows that negative ads tend to be remembered more than positive,' said Jackson. 'But will there be a backlash? Ask me after election day.'
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