GOP candidates skip ads for debate

Less than three months before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, there is scarcely a political ad to be seen on television, but the candidates seem permanently positioned at the lectern. Four new debates were announced last week. That means after nine debates since May, there are 14 more scheduled. Meanwhile, only Rep. Ron Paul is airing television ads. Front-runners Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, both well-funded, have yet to buy TV time.

That's a departure from the last Republican primary — and dismaying to TV stations in early primary states. Instead of highly crafted 30-second spots driving perceptions of candidates, the debates are allowing candidates to define themselves — or damage themselves — in their own words. This is what political campaigns are supposed to be like, according to decades of handwringing about the corrosive effect of negative advertising and the distorting effect of the media filter and sound-bite politics. "It's always great to see a lot of debates, because it gives citizens and voters a chance to see kind of the raw product, before it's all packaged,'' says Meredith McGehee of Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan group focused on campaign finance and political advertising. People are watching. The debates have gotten big audiences by cable standards: 6.1 million watched a Fox News GOP debate on Sept. 22 and 5.5 million watched the most recent debate Tuesday on CNN.