Tube Wars

In some attenuated way this campaign between George Bush and Michael Dukakis may be a battle for the hearts and minds of their countrymen, but for the working million-dollar stiffs who actually run the campaigns, it’s a battle for eyeballs and nerve endings. It’s a battle of edit suites and media buys. It’s tube wars.

You’ve seen the stuff from Dukakis. His three heavily bought 30-second spots attack the GOP for, respectively, running up the federal deficit, creating a hollow prosperity, and shorting the folks on child care, housing, and college loans. I give it to you as my considered opinion, as both a political amateur and a television pro, that the parsimonious Dukakis is blowing his money. He has chosen to engage a Republican opponent on Republican issues in a Republican idiom. If Dukakis doesn’t change his approach, and soon, he’s looking at a GOP landslide.

BF

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B. Freeman

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In some attenuated way this campaign between George Bush and Michael Dukakis may be a battle for the hearts and minds of their countrymen, but for the working million-dollar stiffs who actually run the campaigns, it’s a battle for eyeballs and nerve endings. It’s a battle of edit suites and media buys. It’s tube wars.

You’ve seen the stuff from Dukakis. His three heavily bought 30-second spots attack the GOP for, respectively, running up the federal deficit, creating a hollow prosperity, and shorting the folks on child care, housing, and college loans. I give it to you as my considered opinion, as both a political amateur and a television pro, that the parsimonious Dukakis is blowing his money. He has chosen to engage a Republican opponent on Republican issues in a Republican idiom. If Dukakis doesn’t change his approach, and soon, he’s looking at a GOP landslide.