Obama Floods Florida Airwaves

Sen Barack Obama's campaign has aired 9,785 local broadcast TV commercials in Florida while Sen John McCain's campaign has aired none. The Obama campaign has spent about $6.5 million on TV advertising in Florida, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a unit of media tracker TNS Media Intelligence. In part, the spending can be attributed to the Democrat's late start there. He refrained from campaigning in Florida during the primary season after the Democratic Party penalized the state for holding its primary early. A spokesman for Sen. McCain declined to discuss why the campaign hasn't run TV ads in Florida, but said the Republican is investing heavily in the state and is doing well. McCain does get some exposure to Florida television viewers through national buys on NBC during the Olympics and on cable news channels. By this time in 2004, President Bush's re-election campaign had spent $13.5 million on television in Florida. The president went on to win the state in November. Sen Obama's ads have touched every media market in Florida, which is the most expensive for advertising among the closely fought states. In total, Sen. Obama has spent about $36.6 million on television ads across the country since the end of the Democratic nomination fight, with Florida so far taking the biggest share of any single state. The Obama campaign is also alone on the airwaves in North Carolina, Indiana, Georgia and southern Virginia.