The 2012 air war is on again ? and this time, it?s national.
With the Republican presidential primary moving to a far vaster political battlefield, Mitt Romney?s campaign and super PAC have embarked on a large-scale television and radio offensive aimed at reclaiming his front-runner status and halting Rick Santorum?s rise.
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The price tag so far is nearly $2.7 million, according to multiple sources monitoring the paid-media campaign. That number is sure to rise dramatically as the Arizona and Michigan primaries approach on Feb. 28, with Super Tuesday following a week later.
Santorum is now scrambling to catch up with the rapid deployment of Romney?s resources: his chief strategist, John Brabender, confirmed to POLITICO that the campaign plans to go on the air within the next few days in Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma and Tennessee. The Santorum campaign?s first new ads could start in Ohio as early as Thursday.
But as of Tuesday night, Santorum had just $42,000 in Fox News ad time reserved, solely in Michigan.
Recent polls show a competitive race in Michigan, Romney?s home state where his father was governor. But the blizzard of TV ads, some of which are aggressively attacking Santorum, could obliterate any advantage by the ex-Pennsylvania senator. Romney?s negative air assault did much the same thing to Newt Gingrich?s lead before the Iowa caucuses and the Florida primary. Romney will be in Michigan today and tomorrow, while Santorum will arrive Thursday.
Both Santorum and the super PAC supporting him have indicated they hope to ramp up their air presence quickly, though both are believed to be at a financial disadvantage to Romney?s operation.
?We will significantly increase our buys soon,? Santorum campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley said in an email.
The skies have darkened fastest over Michigan, where Romney?s campaign booked over $1.2 million in airtime Tuesday and began running a commercial showing the candidate describing his upbringing in the Wolverine State.
The pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future also began airing anti-Santorum ads in Arizona and Ohio Wednesday, in addition to Michigan. Since the beginning of the week, ROF has purchased airtime targeting a total of eight upcoming primary contests.
The ROF ads going after Santorum highlight his record on earmarks while a senator, branding him a ?big spender? and ?Washington insider? ? and amplifying the attack lines Romney and his surrogates have used on the campaign trail.
?How did Rick Santorum actually vote? Santorum voted to raise the debt limit five times and for billions in wasteful projects, including the ?Bridge to Nowhere,?? the super PAC ad says.
ROF has reserved nearly $600,000 in ad time on Michigan television over the next week, as well as $99,000 in radio ads there. A majority of the spending is in the Detroit and Grand Rapids media markets.
The super PAC has also laid the groundwork for a larger, national-scale television campaign with reservations across the March 6 Super Tuesday landscape and beyond. The pro-Romney group is on the air in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Tennessee, on top of the three states where it is running ads against Santorum. It will also have a presence on national talk radio.
That means Romney will have air support in all those states days before Santorum starts getting his message out through television ads ? even though those are states where the Pennsylvanian?s conservative positions are expected to resonate.
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