17th August 2016, 10:25 AM
Now, I think Hillary is going to win, but the very fact that Trump is even a contender, one who's name crosses my mind (against my will) on a daily basis at this point means that the whole "you can't win a campaign without investing millions on televised ads" thing has just been broken. By Trump.
Trump has spent exactly nothing on TV ads. Not a dime. He doesn't have to. All he has to do is say "hey, I want to say something" and news networks give their air time to him free of charge. They've been doing it since long before Trump even ran for President.
Ignore that my state doesn't bother with political ads for a second and think about what that means. In those states that ARE running ads for her, it doesn't matter! Trump supporters are still going surprisingly strong, and he hasn't run ad 1!
This could be the death of utterly depending on millions of dollars of ad revenue in order to win elections, and I would welcome it. The only thing threatening it is both parties deciding "nah, just a fluke, let's go BACK to the way things were and waste millions racing against each other on an increasingly failing advertising platform". I wouldn't be surprised at all if, in actual fact, the average person is basing their voting decisions on discussions on Tweeter and MyFace.
Trump has spent exactly nothing on TV ads. Not a dime. He doesn't have to. All he has to do is say "hey, I want to say something" and news networks give their air time to him free of charge. They've been doing it since long before Trump even ran for President.
Ignore that my state doesn't bother with political ads for a second and think about what that means. In those states that ARE running ads for her, it doesn't matter! Trump supporters are still going surprisingly strong, and he hasn't run ad 1!
This could be the death of utterly depending on millions of dollars of ad revenue in order to win elections, and I would welcome it. The only thing threatening it is both parties deciding "nah, just a fluke, let's go BACK to the way things were and waste millions racing against each other on an increasingly failing advertising platform". I wouldn't be surprised at all if, in actual fact, the average person is basing their voting decisions on discussions on Tweeter and MyFace.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)