Outside The Spotlight: Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

John McCain on Wednesday proposed a temporary suspension of the presidential campaign -- including a cease-fire in ad spending -- to focus on the ongoing economic crisis. But as of this morning, ads continued to air across the country. McCain...

Outside The Spotlight: Selling The Next Energy Plan

As Congress is poised to consider legislation addressing the high price of fuel, a coalition of financial trade associations has launched a campaign to counter calls for tougher regulation on "energy speculators" and to urge lawmakers to embrace solutions that...

Outside The Spotlight: Dems Expand Ad Spending

The Democratic National Committee has set up an independent campaign to advertise in support of Barack Obama this year. Such an operation allows the party to exceed the $19 million spending cap placed on ads released in coordination with the...

Outside The Spotlight: Ads On (Wire)tap

The netroots aren't planning to let Democrats off the hook for supporting a law that amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to expand domestic spying powers and grant immunity for telecom firms that have participated in wiretapping. Web activists are...

Outside The Spotlight: Food For Thought

In broadcast ads launching this week in the Washington metro area, the United Commercial Food Workers union urges viewers to take a critical look at the pork industry. The group isn't targeting the culture of earmark spending on Capitol Hill,...

Outside The Spotlight: Knee-Deep In Mud

In the lead-up to both states' primary contests last week, California and New Jersey were hotbeds of political attack ads as candidates for local and national offices dug up dirt in last-minute efforts to win over voters. While vying for...

Outside The Spotlight: Wyden's Wide Internet Appeal

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden may not have to defend his seat until 2010, but his campaign has been using Web advertisements to tout his health care plan and to direct constituents to a humorous Web-only video explaining the plan. Wyden,...

Outside The Spotlight: Keeping The Peace In Maine

Following weeks of markedly mucky exchanges between Democratic presidential candidates, one lawmaker is bucking his party's trend by trying to set a positive tone for ads and asking independent groups to follow suit. Rep. Tom Allen (D), who is running...

Outside The Spotlight: 'Politics As A Commodity'

Members of Hezbollah are borrowing tricks from U.S. advertising for an upcoming campaign commemorating the eighth anniversary of the Israeli military withdrawal from Southern Lebanon after a 17-year occupation. Artists and writers designing the slick billboards, leaflets and television spots...

Outside The Spotlight: Politics At The Pump

A chain of gas stations in Minnesota recently denied the state GOP's request to air political ads on the monitors at its pumps, the Pioneer Press reported. Under a plan devised by Minnesota Republicans, people filling up at Holiday gas...

Outside The Spotlight: North Of The Border

As all eyes in the U.S. are on the presidential candidates' copious ad buys, a controversy over too much political advertising is raising eyebrows in Canada. The offices of Canada's Conservative Party were recently raided by investigators with a warrant...

Outside The Spotlight: Agency Ads Get Attention

The Census Bureau this week unveiled its first ad for the 2010 census, Advertising Age reported. Posters and leaflets donned with the tagline, "It's in our hands," were distributed in an attempt to encourage participation. The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile,...

Outside The Spotlight: Courting "Wheel" Fans

Evan Tracey at Advertising Age's Campaign Trail blog observed that every dollar Hillary Rodham Clinton spends in Pennsylvania is a dollar the campaign cannot spend to reach out to voters in Indiana and North Carolina. (A campaign official for Barack...