Prohibited: "electronic advertising that reaches a significant percentage of the voters..."

.. in the aforementioned states"

That is part of the pledge that Obama, Edwards and Clinton signed.

It specifically mentioned electronic advertising in the pledge.

Prohibited: "electronic advertising that reaches a significant percentage of the voters in the aforementioned states."

Cable television and satellite reaches 92% of Florida households.

What part of this is hard to understand?

Obama is breaking the rules.

They didn't consider national ads when they wrote up the pledge, they didn't differentiate between national ads, and ads specific to Florida, and catered toward Floridians.

I'm not arguing against you in saying the pledge, WHEN TAKEN LITERALLY, doesn't ban national ads. I agree with you there.


But, the pledge is brief, and non-specific. Pledges like this can be clarified and modified.


Assuming the people WHO WROTE IT now approve of the national ads, that means they didn't make the clarification that they should've between national ads and Florida specific ads when they wrote the agreement, and are now clarifying.

the Obama campaign went to one state party chair and got an answer from her they liked and unilaterally went ahead with the buy.

In specific violation of the pledge. The pledge banned electronic advertising if it reaches a significant portion of a state. It doesn't give any loopholes for cable or for anything else. It's there in black and white and Obama violated it.

extensive thought about extenuating circumstances. It was said by one of the DNC chairs that "unequivocally" it is not within the power of the pledge to ban national ads.

you DONT think it's a little silly to say he can't play an ad to reach the other 49 states, because it reaches one? That is just ludicrous to say that's reasonable, in my opinionn. It would SERIOUSLY hurt his ability to reach audiences in the Feb. 5 states, which is pivotal to the election.

The pledge was not meant to be that extensive, in considering electronic advertising it meant ads catered towards Florida, or sent to Florida when there was an option of not sending them.

Send an e-mail to some of the DNC state chairs, before you consider your judgment on the issue to supersede the SC chair's decision.

He has to advertise. How else is Dr. Obama's Traveling Salvation Show going to sell more tonic?

then Clinton and Edwards have the right to campaign there.

It also means the results matter. Delegates or no delegates, the state has now officially been contested.

is that what happened?

My wife buys cable spots for 1-5 bucks each that covers our county of 60,000 or so viewers.

I don't even really know what this one's about.

which play nationally, and the channels weren't able to omit only Florida. So taken literally, the pledge bans any ads playing on CNN, MSNBC, etc.

but the networks told him that they couldn't run it and exempt Florida. If you do a national buy, it's a national buy - Florida is included.

The pledge, signed by all the candidates, explicitly banned Florida advertising.

So Obama went to the South Carolina Party Chair, Carol Fowler, who told him she didn't see a problem with it, and he went ahead and broke the pledge.

Both CLinton and Edwards, to date, have honored the pledge.

Hence the controversy.

are "electronic advertising" as well. Don't all the candidates run their ads on their own websites?