If I understand correctly, the Romney campaign is rolling in dough. If I were running the show, here’s what I would do:
1) Do big-ish new ad buys in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota, and small ones in Oregon and the 2nd District of Maine.
2) Keep Paul Ryan in Wisconsin for the rest of the campaign.
3) Do a late issue blitz on ObamaCare, and especially on its medical device tax.
Details: 1A) The Philly suburbs are ripe for a Romney mini-surge. I would buy TV and radio time there — and not just on the big-4 network affiliates, but on channels like the Home Shopping Network, A&E, the Lifetime Channel, and the Discovery Network. B) Scranton and Harrisburg probably both offer bang for the buck. Buy on ESPN and the History Channel there, too. C) I would buy time (it’s cheap) in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (which also bleeds a little into Wisconsin), in Marquette. Obama won the U.P. by 9,000 votes four years ago, but Romney could actually eke out a majority there and thus help eke out a win in the state. Of coruse, ad buys in places like Lansing also will be less expensive than in Detroit, and could make a real difference. D) I would do a sudden, large buy in Rochester, MN, against ObamaCare. Not only would this hit the Mayo audience, but Rochester TV also bleeds into Iowa and Wisconsin. E) In Oregon, the place to buy is Eugene. F) In Maine, I’d buy in Bangor, and I’d do radio in any little station in the 2nd district that also can be heard in NH.
2) Have Ryan treat the last seven days like a statewide race for governor. Have him crisscross the state, hitting all sorts of small towns, especially in the FOx River Valley. Get the rural areas on fire for his ticket. And end in his home district with this message: “Look, if you like what I’ve been able to do for you as a mere congressman, imagine how much good I can do for Wisconsin as vice president.” Don’t be afraid to make the explicit home-state sale. Do anything it takes to hype home-state pride. There never has been a president or vice president from Wisconsin. It’s time for that to change.
3) How can Obama be so heartless — not to mention so blind to the job-killing nature of his new tax for plants throughout the Midwest, especially in Wisconsin — as to put a major new tax on all sales of pacemakers, insulin pumps, catheters, asthma inhalers, prosthetics, and even artificial hips?
