My area of expertise isn't with political ads, but most advertising is a waste of money, it has no effect on sales, most people make their decisions on convenience and price at the time of purchase. How that translates to politics I don't know, but it's been my experience political ads only reinforce already held beliefs. If you want to hate Obama you'll believe a negative ad about him. If you want to support Romney, you'll be able to dismiss a factual, negative ad about him. And vice versa.

I think most people are already predisposed to voting one side or the other. Undecideds are mostly just afraid to share their opinions openly, or are just idiots who shouldn't be voting in the first place. Anyone who is honestly undecided is purposely uninformed.

But we are so gerrymandered and polarized already, the undecided only decide the closest of elections. So they are the human equivalent of a coin toss.

I look at undecided voters like the people who give money to tv evangelists. I used to think they were getting ripped off, until it occurred to me they are so stupid it's a wonder they had any money in the first place. Someone was going to scam them, why are the evangelists any less deserving than home shopping or the lottery.

From thin air. I was making (an apparently weak) joke, but my point was that many elections are close enough that even a slight difference made by paid media can have an effect. As someone mentioned recently, the "gerry-mangled" districts of today make low-information voters reliant on paid media to inform them about many of the candidates.

Oops sorry, I saw figures and got excited, I was hoping you may have had read them somewhere, (I'm doing some research for a project at work).

I'm not educated enough about advertising to disagree with you. But if you're correct, then why is so much money spent on ads? I do know a fair amount about political campaigns, and a majority of their funds go to broadcast advertising. Surely the campaigns would stop if the ads delivered few votes.

As I mentioned earlier, it's not about whether political ads influence ALL voters, it's about whether they influence ENOUGH voters. For candidates running in "safe seats", where polls show they are a virtual lock to win/lose, you will see very few ads and very little money donated to them to pay for ads.

I remember talking to a woman during the 2008 race. She was undecided right up to Election Day.

She said she really liked Sarah Palin -- Sarah was a straight shooter with great ideas -- but she also really liked Hillary Clinton, and it's a shame they weren't on a ticket together.

"What the hell are your politics?" I asked her.

Looking from afar ...

If Obama wins, it'll be pretty much the same. A major problem with Politics these days is that the primary purpose for Politicians is to get elected and then get re-elected. With this is in mind, Obama's wars in the Middle East and his use of drones is designed to show that he is as tough as any Republican and can thus neutralise any right wing criticisms. Similarly, his recent public support for gay marriage is an attempt to win votes - his previous calculation was that it would lose him support but since he never had support from the type of people who oppose gay marriage there was no need to pander for them i.e. there was nothing much to be gained or lost in not publicly supporting gay marriage, but much could be gained from publicly supporting it - totally cynical and calculated and unprincipled.

If Romney wins, it'll be pretty much like if Obama had won. For the sake of the nomination, Romney has tried to paint himself as a right winger, but with the nomination, he now needs to paint himself as a moderate to appeal to the wider public.

It's not much different over here but the our system does allow the government to actually do something and pass laws. I oppose most of that which of our current government is doing as I am off the left.

God Bless America.

It's weird to watch the national TV news during a presidential election year.

The first 10 minutes are about ELECTION ELECTION ELECTION WHO WILL BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT THIS IS HISTORY IN THE MAKING FOLKS!!!

Then we get two minutes explaining that nothing the president tried to do this week succeeded or made much difference to speak of.

Shit, maybe you're right about political ads. What could that lady possibly find similar in those two women other than gender? And Sarah Palin is a straight shooter? Yep, no way that opinion was based on anything but Sarah Palin ads. The woman calls softball questions from Katie Couric, attacks for gods sake.

I get it, Palin seems nice enough. But don't people ask for references for nannies or house sitters? When I used to interview people for enrty level designer jobs I did way more than just read resumés, and reviewed portfolios, I asked enough questions to see if they knew what the were doing. How on earth can anyone have wanted Sarah Palin governing anything, let alone VP, and possibly President? Because she was cute and seemed a pleasant enough sort of lady?