Quotes About Campaign Ads

“Epstein came up with an elaborate plan, including TV ads, and presented it to the board. The board rejected it.
"It really came down to this," McCaffrey later said. "We have a limited budget. Do we want to put that money into the technology, into the infrastructure, into hiring really great people? Or do we want to blow it on a marketing campaign that we can't measure?" Larry and Sergey told Epstein that his interim stint was over”

— Steven Levy

“The TV ads have been coming hot and heavy in Ohio. I think the Obama campaign has outspent the Romney campaign by two-to-one or three-to-one, depending on the analysis you look at. People are tired of the attacks already, and here we are in July.”

— Rob Portman

“It just happened that the course of the campaign went negative we actually went positive for a little over a week and you do the tracking of poll numbers and it hurt us. So the public responded to those type of ads.”

— Scott McCallum

“I said during the course of the campaign I didn't like it and I don't like the idea of having an opponent's picture on your ads and it would be nice to see candidates sign a pledge like that.”

— Scott McCallum

“Both the Obama and Romney campaigns said they pulled all their political ads today in observance of the September 11th anniversary. But politics wasn't very far offstage. The Obama campaign sees foreign policy as an advantage this year.”

— Mara Liasson

“I don't think people in Hawaii like negative ads, whether it's done by an independent group or whether it's done by the campaign itself.”

— Colleen Hanabusa

“Campaign ads are the backbone of American democracy if American democracy suffered a gigantic spinal injury.”

— John Oliver

“In a way, you might say that David Duke is the son of Willie Horton. Duke is more overt, of course, but he's really just pushing the same buttons and sending the same coded messages that the Horton ads did so effectively for the Bush campaign last year.”

— Judd Rose

“And it's the President of the United States who said he wasn't going to spike the football and all this, we shouldn't gloat about it, running campaign ads, gloating about it and saying the other guy isn't good enough to do the tough things that I did, which I think is, one reprehensible.”

— Jonah Goldberg

“Moreover, the reward, as Hopkins envisioned it, was even more enticing. Who, after all, doesn't want to be more beautiful? Who doesn't want a prettier smile? Particularly when all it takes is a quick brush with Pepsodent? HOPKINS'S CONCEPTION OF THE PEPSODENT HABIT LOOP After the campaign launched, a quiet week passed. Then two. In the third week, demand exploded. There were so many orders for Pepsodent that the company couldn't keep up. In three years, the product went international, and Hopkins was crafting ads in Spanish, German, and Chinese. Within a decade, Pepsodent was one of the top-selling goods in the world, and remained America's best-selling toothpaste for more than thirty years.2.10,2.11”

— Charles Duhigg

“I think when a campaign is dishonest in the ads they run about another candidate, it diminishes the campaign, it diminishes the candidate, and it diminishes the presidency.”

— Mitt Romney

“The (campaign) ads all have the same tone - the voice is hushed and amazed when talking about The Enemy, as if you should worry how this amoral, power-mad, extremist puppy-strangler clawed his way out of hell and landed in your district. And the voice is happy and relieved when talking about The Most Noble Candidate, as though he's Santa, Will Rogers and Lincoln all rolled into one.”

— James Lileks

“So Merrill Lynch has launched its first campaign in years to advertise the accomplishments of its investment banking business. The ads feature things like Merrill's recapitalization of Sierra Pacific. I guess including "helping Enron achieve its earnings goals in 1999" might be a little awkward given that Merrill Lynch bankers are currently on trial in Houston for that "accomplishment."”

— Bethany McLean

“We need to shut down this Gitmo prison? Well, don't shut it down
we just need to start an advertising campaign. We need to call it, "Gitmo, the Muslim resort." Any resort that treated people like this would have ads all over the New York Times trying to get people to come down and visit for some R&R, for some rest and relaxation.”

— Rush Limbaugh

“The White House begun airing their TV commercials to re-elect the president, and the John Kerry campaign is condemning his use of 9/11 in the ads. He said, it is unconscionable to use the tragic memory of a war in order to get elected, unless of course, it's the Vietnam War.”

— Jay Leno

“Last week John McCain said the fundamentals of our economy are strong. This week, he said it's the worst crisis since World War II. So he suspended his campaign, unless you count doing interviews, airing attack ads, sending out surrogates on TV to attack Obama.”

— Bill Maher

“It's a matter of fact that Senator Obama has spent more money on negative ads than any political campaign in history.”

— John McCain

“It has been reported that Rudolph Giuliani has trademarked the name 'Rudolph Giuliani' so other candidates can't use his name in negative campaign ads ... For similar reasons, Hillary Clinton has trademarked the words 'ballbuster,' 'castrater,' and 'nutcruncher.'”

— Conan O'Brien

“The campaign to put a woman on the $20 bill has narrowed the choices down to four finalists. The four finalists are Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Flo from the Progressive Insurance ads.”

— Conan O'Brien

“Thank heaven Election Day is over. No more campaign ads, no more mud-slinging, no more candidates pretending they're straight. It's over!”

— Craig Ferguson