About that so-called "horrible" Kerry campaign

[ProSense]

No single measure captures the extent of a presidential victory. The sheer number of voters that Bush inspired to turn out demonstrated impressive strength. But on several key indicators, Bush's victory ranks among the narrowest ever for a reelected president.

Measured as a share of the popular vote, Bush beat Kerry by just 2.9 percentage points: 51% to 48.1%. That's the smallest margin of victory for a reelected president since 1828.

The only previous incumbent who won a second term nearly so narrowly was Democrat Woodrow Wilson: In 1916, he beat Republican Charles E. Hughes by 3.1 percentage points. Apart from Truman in 1948 (whose winning margin was 4.5 percentage points), every other president elected to a second term since 1832 has at least doubled the margin that Bush had over Kerry.

In that 1916 election, Wilson won only 277 out of 531 electoral college votes. That makes Wilson the only reelected president in the past century who won with fewer electoral college votes than Bush's 286.

Measured another way, Bush won 53% of the 538 electoral college votes available this year. Of all the chief executives reelected since the 12th Amendment separated the vote for president and vice president -- a group that stretches back to Thomas Jefferson in 1804 -- only Wilson (at 52%) won a smaller share of the available electoral college votes. In the end, for all his gains, Bush carried just two states that he lost last time.

http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/8618.html

Kerry TV ads outpace Bush's

By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY

Sen. John Kerry's campaign and groups opposed to President Bush have run almost twice as many TV ads in closely contested states as the Bush-Cheney campaign. That is the opposite of what many political experts predicted before March, when Kerry emerged as the likely Democratic candidate for president.

The gap could grow by the July 26 start of the Democratic National Convention. This month, the Kerry campaign plans to spend $18 million on TV ads, outpacing the Bush campaign by about $10 million. Kerry's ads include the first one spotlighting his running mate, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. (Graphic: Ad spending)

"It was supposed to be 'poor John Kerry,' or 'poor Democrats, they'll be overwhelmed by a Bush money machine' " that would saturate 16 to 20 competitive states with TV ads, says Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

USA TODAY obtained data collected by TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ads. The data, covering 17 closely contested states from March 3 through June 26, show:

• The Kerry campaign's ads were shown 72,908 times, 3.1% more than the Bush-Cheney campaign's 70,688 showings.

• Political groups' ads were shown 56,627 times. All but 513 were ads by liberal, anti-Bush groups such as MoveOn PAC and The Media Fund. The others were by conservative groups.

Taken together, about 129,000 Kerry or anti-Bush ads were aired, 82% more than the Bush-Cheney total.

The 17 states used were Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

more...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-07-11-kerry-ads_x.htm

A record 59 million votes is not horrible!