About $2 billion --  representing approximately 80 to 90 percent of money candidates raise -- will be spent on television ads during the 2008 election cycle. In his recent essay "Assault on Advertising" for Fast Company Tim Manners makes the point that this is a "colossal waste of money."  

The money quotes from Tim's article, in my opinion:

• About 70 percent of senior-level marketers [agree] that the effectiveness of traditional TV advertising is not what it used to be, according to a recent survey by The HUB magazine.
• The only thing for certain about traditional television advertising these days is that it does not provide a reliable return on marketing investment.
• Obviously, the Internet is a key driver of the media fragmentation that has rendered television advertising less effective than it used to be. At the same time, its powerful potential to connect with consumers is a driving force behind its own extraordinary growth as a marketing medium.
• The future of marketing is not about manipulating us as much as it is about serving us.
• The business of marketing may well be about promoting things we never knew we wanted or needed (did anyone ever ask for an iPod?) but only within the context of what is relevant to the way we live our lives today. Any other approach is doomed to failure.
• The problem is...the weakness of politicians who use "social-networks" to raise billions of dollars on the internet, only to short-circuit that conversation and waste their money on outdated, ineffective, negative and often outright insulting television advertising campaigns.