.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left; font-size: 12px;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;}
In a year of record campaign spending in the Iowa caucuses, Mike Huckabee got more for less and John McCain got something for nothing.

Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who was barely a bump on the caucus trail in October, brought his aw-shucks humor and populist message to Iowa television audiences in November, spent a relatively paltry $340,960 on advertising and won the Republican Party caucuses. By comparison, Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden spent one-third that amount in the final two weeks of the campaign alone, only to drop out of the campaign after the caucuses.

McCain set the standard for parsimony. He didn’t spend a dime on television ads, yet he finished in a virtual dead heat for third with Fred Thompson, the former television actor and U.S. senator from Tennessee who spent $391,850 to define himself as a presidential candidate.

“In Iowa, the Huckabee way worked,” said Stephen Winzenburg, a communications professor at Grand View College. “It’s hard to say it would work someplace else.”

In fact, the “Huckabee way” – show up late with a warm, fuzzy and friendly message that built in frequency near the end of the campaign – didn’t work in New Hampshire, where Huckabee finished a distant third after being heavily outspent by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arizona Sen. McCain.

Observers of political ads are calling this a record year for spending in Iowa. Candidates who finished in the top three of their respective party caucuses spent $5.2 million from Oct. 1 to caucus day on Jan. 3.

The demand for prime spots put a squeeze on their availability and drove up ad rates. A 30-second spot on KCCI’s top-rated 10 p.m. news was available for $1,100 in September. Just a few weeks later, the cost was $1,800.

Stations are required to provide television time to candidates at the lowest available rate. When those rates disappear, the ads are bumped into a pricier slot, said Anne Marie Caudron, national sales manager for KCCI.

As in any campaign, candidates “heavied up” their buying as caucus day approached, Caudron said.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama not only won the Democratic Party caucuses, he also won the all-party ad race, pouring $1.5 million into 3,291 television spots that ran from Oct. 1 to Jan. 3. Obama was the first candidate to buy television time, with his first ad appearing Jan. 1, 2007. In the final four days of the campaign, Obama spots appeared 86 times on KCCI alone. His ads appeared on the station 123 times from the day after Christmas through caucus day.

Obama obviously didn’t win the “Huckabee way,” but he carried a message that seemed soft in tone but heavy on a call for change. It settled in with Iowa voters and may have provided a counterpoint to New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s focus on experience in many of her ads, Winzenburg said.

Ads focusing on experience may have left the impression that Clinton was deeply entrenched in the system, whereas Iowa caucus-goers were ready to embrace someone who appeared to be outside the political fray, hence the victories by Huckabee and Obama, Winzenburg said. He noted that if people were impressed by Clinton’s experience and credentials, then they would respond positively to ads focusing on those qualities. On the other hand, if voters saw those same qualities as a defect, they would have been turned off by the commercials.

And there were a bevy of those ads. Clinton spent $1.2 million for 2,245 ad spots during the final 13 weeks of the campaign only to lose her status as frontrunner by caucus day. The ads might not have teased in any new supporters, Winzenburg said. Instead, political advertising tends to reinforce how you already feel about a candidate. If you favored experience, then Clinton’s ads probably held a special appeal.

Romney had a similar fate, spending $845,895 on ads, more than Huckabee and Thompson combined, to finish second.

One first-time observer of Iowa caucus season and the ads growing out of it believes the millions spent on television advertising also folded into some free time on the Internet by generating clips, conversation and unmanaged debate.

“This is the first election that truly has used electronic media to this extent,” said Dorothy Pisarski, an assistant professor of advertising at Drake University.