Oct. 31--If Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and other politicians really want to go to war with the media, they have to stop sending aid to their enemies. They can't keep giving their opposition billions of dollars.
Their campaigns and the super PACs behind them simply should not buy ads.
Yes, I work in the media and, yes, I am keenly aware my industry can ill-afford to have any reliable revenue stream run dry.
But, seriously, all this anti-media grandstanding is like a car alarm that keeps going off in the middle of the night. At some point, almost anything starts to seem like a better option than having to listen to the persistent whine.
Besides, candidates won't take the advice. They don't trust the media. Remember?
Borrell Associates, which tracks media trends, earlier this year estimated $11.4 billion will be spent on 2016 political advertising, 20 percent more than was spent in 2014. That 2016 estimate for national, state and local races swells to $16.5 billion if you count what's being spent this year.
Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group, which focuses on television advertising, offered a narrower, more conservative projection of 2016 political ad spending on state and federal elections at around $4.4 billion, up from $3.8 billion in 2012.
Trying to guess what total TV spending will be before the end of the Republican presidential primary season may be silly, given the crowded field. But in any case, it's a "yuuuuge" chunk of change, as one campaigning media critic might put it.
That's pure oxygen at a time when an otherwise soft ad market has some gasping for breath.
Rallying supporters around the notion that the media is the opposition is a time-honored tradition. But it makes no sense to then take the money those supporters give you and hand it to the same opposition.
The candidates will say they need to buy advertising to counterbalance the slanted coverage, unfair depictions and falsehoods being spread by the media, but then those ads will get fact-checked and the cycle will continue.
And when looking at attack ads, note how many cite media coverage of a rival.
One doesn't get involved in politics, however, without the Houdini-like ability to break free of consistency and inescapable logic when convenient.
Just the same, there hasn't been an office-seeker of any political stripe who, rightly or wrongly, hasn't felt coverage has been unfair at some time or another.
Even those more blue than red in the face, people inclined to think legitimate the questions CNBC asked of Republicans in the Colorado event that set off Cruz, Rubio, Chris Christie and others, should be able to acknowledge that John Harwood and company had an awful night.
There was a lack of focus in a debate that was supposed to be about economic issues. Things slid out of control fast. When challenging candidates on facts, it's best to have those facts at your fingertips, chapter and verse. (Jim Cramer might recall how Jon Stewart did it.)
Candidates might have teed off on the media anyway, but CNBC made it easy.
Not that complaints will have much effect on CNBC. It's part of Comcast. Cable subscribers have sworn for years Comcast grew numb to complaints long ago. Oh, how they've sworn.
Kantar estimates local broadcast TV stations will be beneficiaries of $3.3 billion in 2016 political spending. Local cable will get another $800 million. The rest of the TV money will be split on national cable and broadcast networks.
Comcast has cable and broadcast networks, such as CNBC, MSNBC, USA, E! and NBC. It owns local TV stations, such as WMAQ-Ch. 5. It owns local cable systems that sell ads. It has to be banking on political ad money. Big time.
Digital's share of the political ad windfall is growing, expected to account for about 10 percent of the total political ad spending, according to Borrell. Newspapers, meanwhile, are only expected to see 7.4 percent from the pols, and radio just 7.3 percent.
But every bit counts and media companies are counting on every bit.
Moody's Investors Service is among those to say they expect a surge in election ad money to help make 2016 a very good year for TV, particularly at the local TV outlet level.
Broadcast groups such as Tribune Media, the Chicago-based parent of WGN-Ch. 9 that spun off publishing properties such as the Chicago Tribune last year, have redoubled their political sales efforts to cash in.
But if politicians really want to kill the messenger, rather than merely create a scapegoat, they'll starve him out. Right?
Arming the group with whom you're fighting is no way to win a fight. Hard to believe our leaders -- and would-be leaders -- haven't figured that out by now.
Margin call: Less than 18 weeks before the end of his one term, John Adams became the first president to move to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Work had begun eight years earlier, but the building was still unfinished. It wasn't until 1901 that President Theodore Roosevelt dubbed the residence the White House.
philrosenthal@tribpub.com
