ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses mostly on federal and statewide campaigns, with some focus on presidential campaign lessons, and exceptions to those lessons. Changes in technology, law, and society have radically changed the role of paid media, from its effectiveness and primacy to even the way in which it's scripted and produced. Paid media of all kinds still absorb 70% or more of a functional campaign's budget. Scrolling a list of the votes on the screen was an idea intended to create the overwhelming plethora of votes. Pandora's box was originally opened when the first political TV ad was broadcast in 1952. Fundamentally, media planning and buying is about data. Knowing what the strategy is means knowing what people targets are, and then apportioning resources appropriately. For most political campaigns, the paid media line item is the biggest line item in the budget.
