Forty-five Hours in Hell: What campaign ads did to one man’s mind.
In early August, I flew to Dayton, Ohio, one of the most contested battlegrounds of this election. I’d come here to experience the swing-state wars for myself—not by surveying voters or taking the pulse of Main Street, but by sitting in a hotel room. I checked into the airport Holiday Inn and turned on the television. Then I pretty much didn’t move for the next 45 hours.
In the remaining 74 days until the election, Ohioans will be assaulted by hundreds upon hundreds of political ads. In terms of TV airtime bought by the presidential campaigns and their allies, Ohio was—during the week of my experiment—one of the four most saturated states in the country. The Cincinnati TV market alone placed second nationwide, trailing only Colorado Springs.
My goal was to maximize ad exposure; mainline the experience by condensing two months into two days. First, I would channel surf until I hit a commercial pod. Then I’d watch all the spots—waiting for a campaign ad to pop up—until the scheduled programming returned. At that point, I’d stalk the dial for the next block of commercials.
This hunting technique immediately paid off. I landed on the Lifetime Movie Network just as the channel was cutting to a pro-Obama ad. “You work hard, you stretch every penny,” an announcer sympathized with Lifetime viewers. The ad flashed to a photo of Mitt Romney, standing before a jet with a giant Trump logo on its fuselage. The announcer continued,
“But chances are you pay a higher tax rate than him.” (In fact, I don’t. I pay a higher tax rate than he. Because, when it comes to grammar, I’m a movement conservative.)