Hot north suburban congressional race gets hotter with big TV buy

Call it the political equivalent of a brushback pitch — and a sign of things to come. U.S. Rep. Bob Dold (R-IL) announced that he has put up the first TV ad of the season in the north suburban district. But the real news was buried at the bottom of Dold's press release. And that's not about the ad, which will run only on cable TV and will cost just $25,000 or so a week, but the "additional $1.88 million in Chicago network (broadcast) television" that the Dold campaign has purchased in October and November.

Though TV ad buys are a matter of public record, campaigns rarely announce their ad strategy, much less two months in advance. Team Dold clearly is trying to make a point here, and it does have money in the bank, a lot more than does Mr. Schneider. The implied message is that Dold can't be beaten. Of course, "reserved" time has not yet been paid for, only put on hold. But the Dold campaign will have to pay a financial penalty if it backs out. You can count on one thing: With national Democratic and GOP groups also having purchased time here to promote their congressional candidates, you've going to be seeing an awful lot of Mr. Dold, and probably Democratic opponent Brad Schneider too, on TV before November.