Cook: John Burkhalter Unveils First Television Ad

Today, Democratic Lt. Governor candidate John Burkhalter released his first TV ad of the campaign. You can view the 30-second spot at the end of this story.

Burkhalter’s ad highlights his experience as a successful businessman who has created hundreds of jobs and emphasizes he is not a politician. Burkhalter says in the ad he plans to use his business experience to create jobs in Arkansas.

Burkhalter is currently a political unknown, which is why he’s smartly spending campaign funds early to introduce himself to Arkansas voters. His opponent, Tim Griffin, is a Congressman representing Arkansas’s largest media market giving the Republican an initial significant advantage in name recognition. But Burkhalter will likely have the funds to quickly catch up with Griffin in the name recognition department.

In this first positive ad, Burkhalter is setting up a clear contrast between Griffin and himself that will play out over the course of the campaign. Tim Griffin is the D.C. politician and John Burkhalter is the businessman. Burkhalter is a proven job creator, Griffin has never created a job. It’s a simple and effective storyline.

The Burkhalter campaign declined to provide information on the size and placement of their television buy. However, thanks to a recent change in the federal regulations, television stations are now required to post all political ad purchases on their websites and I just looked up the information myself.

For all future stories on campaign ads, I’ll likely do the same since the amount of money a campaign spends helps illuminate a campaign’s strategy.

I did a spot check on the Little Rock, Northwest Arkansas, and Jonesboro television markets and found Burkhalter is currently spending $23,530 over the next seven days on three of the four Little Rock television stations. I did not check cable companies due to time constraints.

So far, no ads have been placed in the Jonesboro or Northwest Arkansas television markets that I could find.

While it’s not yet a significant television buy, Burkhalter’s campaign could be in the process of increasing the size of their buy in the Little Rock market and buying time in the other major markets or spending money on cable television. Also, time could have already been purchased in other markets and the television stations may not yet have updated their information. In short, it’s too early to comment on their overall television spending strategy and I wouldn’t be surprised if spending increased in the next few days.

This race for Lt. Governor will likely be the most expensive in Arkansas history. We’ve never had two Lt. Governor nominees with such significant campaign funds to spend in a general election. This race will be fun to watch.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlXGdfASLW0]