(3 of 4)
But how much is too much? Political professionals suspect all this advertising is overkill--and say privately they are playing a game of diminishing returns, at which millions of dollars are being wasted on deaf ears. "By the time we get into the fall," says Wilner, "it will be like the ground after a violent rainstorm: How much more water can the ground absorb?" Or as Fowler says, "Once you've hit 10,000 ads, 1,000 more isn't going to do a whole lot if your opponent will simply match them."
The Homestretch
Romney is already curtailing his time on the trail for long hours of debate prep at his Boston headquarters, where the part of Obama is being played by Ohio Senator (and vice-presidential short lister) Rob Portman. More than 60 million Americans are likely to tune in to the three presidential debates, offering the candidates even more exposure than at their summer party conventions.
The stakes for those debates are rising for Romney, who can hear fellow Republicans impatiently drumming their fingers at his inability to pull ahead of Obama. The Wall Street Journal grouses at Romney's lack of policy specifics, while others decry a play-it-safe campaign style. Fueling this backseat driving is a nagging sense that a nimbler and more charismatic nominee could be soaring, not slogging, at a time of 8% unemployment.
Be patient, say Romney's advisers. Stevens expects undecided voters to break decisively against Obama on Election Day. To be sure, that's not what happened when an incumbent last fought political headwinds: fence sitters roughly split between George W. Bush and John Kerry in 2004. But 2012 could be different, because the undecided bloc is heavily white and male (those voters tend to be pro-Romney) and are more likely than most to see the nation as headed in the wrong direction--a traditionally reliable predictor of anti-incumbent voting. The fact that Obama has barely broken 50% in the polls, even after a winning convention in Charlotte, may suggest he has a ceiling of support that will prevent him from ever opening a decisive lead. "He has just not been acquiring new voters," Stevens tells TIME.
Obama actually outraised Romney in August, $114 million to $111.6 million. But Romney's war chest is thought to be much larger, and GOP super PACs like American Crossroads are sitting on many tens of millions more than their underfunded Democratic counterparts. Hoping to narrow that gap, Democrats recently enlisted former White House chief of staff and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to raise money for the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA, which has struggled to raise cash from liberal donors turned off by big money in politics. The idea fizzled almost as quickly as it emerged. Democrats had hoped that Emanuel's stature (and sheer, profane force of will) might coax cash from reluctant megadonors like George Soros and Oprah Winfrey. But there were questions about the propriety of a big-city mayor's gathering multimillion-dollar checks on his party's behalf, and when Chicago's teachers went on strike, Emanuel shelved his new role--perhaps with some relief--before he'd even assumed it.