Analysis of Presidential Primary Campaign Commercials of 2004

Abstract

This article examines television advertising used during the 2004 presidential primary campaign. Based on interviews with the advertising creators and on repeated viewings by the author and his students it describes and analyzes the advertisements. It reveals that Iowa was the heavy spending state at $12.4 million. It discloses how Kerry won through heavy late spending depending on testimonial advertisements from veterans and others; how Edwards depended on talking-head and town meeting advertisements; how Dean's innovation was the delivery of advertisements on the internet; how Clark relied on a strong bio-documentary while Gephardt, Lieberman, and Kucinich had less notable advertisements.

Keywords:

• Political television ads
• Presidential primary candidate ads
• Iowa caucus
• New Hampshire primary
• Campaign ad spending
• Kerry ads
• Edwards ads
• Dean ads
• Clark ads
• Gephardt ads
• Lieberman ads
• Kucinich ads
• Talking-head ads
• Town meeting ads
• Bio-documentary ads
• Negative ads
• Response ads
• Humorous ads

Additional information

Notes on contributors

L. Patrick Devlin

L. Patrick Devlin (PhD, Wayne State University, 1968) is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI 02881, USA (Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]; Email: [email protected]). This study is his fourth quadrennial study of presidential primary ads. Travel to the New Hampshire primary was subsidized by the University of Rhode Island