The Numbers Game

First Read aggregates some fascinating statistics from various sources.

...Voters in large swaths of Florida will see Obama television commercials dozens of times before catching sight of a McCain ad. A drive across Virginia will wend past 51 Obama field offices, compared with 19 for McCain.

...In the first three weeks of September, Barack Obama ran 1,342 television commercials in the Washington media market that reaches heavily populated and contested Northern Virginia. According to The Nielsen Company, in the same period and market, John McCain aired just eight commercials on broadcast stations.

The Fix:

In Florida, for example, Obama is now spending just shy of $5 million a week on television -- a $1.8 million (!) increase from just a week ago. The same pattern is apparent in Indiana (a $900,000 increase in ad spending over the past week), Missouri ($1.4 million increase) and Virginia ($2.3 million increase).

McCain, too, has upped his buys considerably over the last week but the majority of his increased spending is in states Republicans carried with ease in recent presidential election. He bumped up his buy by more than $700,000 in North Carolina (a state President Bush won with 56 percent in 2004) and more than $600,000 in Missouri (Bush 53 percent).