Obama ad surge a bust

By Rick Moran

After spending millions of dollars in key battleground states this summer, it appears that Barack Obama has not improved his numbers in any substantial way and may have lost ground in some places.

This is the determination of senior strategists for John McCain but is backed up by hard numbers in state polls.:

Instead, the race has further tightened in some of the pivotal states that are among the Obama campaign's biggest ad buys - states that both candidates need to reach the winning number of 270 electoral votes.

The Obama campaign, flush with cash, is spending record amounts of money on big media buys in states like Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Colorado and Michigan, but the latest polls show that, if anything, the polling in these states has either changed little or the Arizona Republican has narrowed the gap in them.

McCain strategists told The Washington Times that they have been closely monitoring the large amounts of cash that Mr. Obama is spending on TV ads in these and a dozen other competitive states to see whether they were moving the Illinois senator's numbers in the race.

"So far we're not seeing any evidence that they have had any measurable impact," said a top McCain campaign official on the condition of anonymity.

It could be that people just aren't paying much attention to the race at this point which means that Obama has just wasted a ton of money. It could also mean that the voters are still in a "wait and see" mode with Obama and are looking for a reason to vote for him

That latter reason is the more likely given other polls showing most American undecided about the Illinois senator and believe him to be the riskier choice in the contest for president. Coupled with the fact that the generic Democratic-Republican vote still tilts heavily toward the Democrats, it appears that many voters will not be making up their minds about Obama until at least the Democratic Convention in August and probably beyond that.

Still, it's good news for McCain whose job now is to keep the voters doubting Obama's abilities - right on through election day.