Analysis of Presidential Primary Campaign Commercials of 2004.

This article examines television advertising used during the 2004 presidential primary campaign. Based on interviews with the advertising creators and on repeated viewings by the author and his students it describes and analyzes the advertisements. It reveals that Iowa was the heavy spending state at $12.4 million. It discloses how Kerry won through heavy late spending depending on testimonial advertisements from veterans and others; how Edwards depended on talking-head and town meeting advertisements; how Dean's innovation was the delivery of advertisements on the internet; how Clark relied on a strong bio-documentary while Gephardt, Lieberman, and Kucinich had less notable advertisements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]