Earlier this week Josh noted the reports we were getting from readers in Missouri that McCain ads were all over TV, while Obama was barely visible. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Jo Mannies runs the numbers:

Since his visit to southwest Missouri last week, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has aired more than three times as many campaign ads in the state as his Democratic rival, Barack Obama.

McCain’s campaign outspent and out-aired Obama in every major media market in Missouri, including St. Louis, from June 19 through last Wednesday. McCain held a town-hall forum in Springfield, Mo. on June 18.

McCain spent $224,696 for 791 spots that ran on local broadcast stations around Missouri. That compares to $115,054 spent by the Obama campaign to air 212 spots.
McCain’s more aggressive spending comes as both campaigns say that Missouri is among their targeted states as they head into the remaining four months before the Nov. 4 general election.

Both candidates’ ad spending in Missouri and Illinois is being monitored for the Post-Dispatch by the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a Virginia-based, nonpartisan firm.

Following up on David’s post below, why is McCain outspending Obama two-to-one in Missouri?

We had reader reports suggesting this last week. And in response to those reports readers from a number of other swing states reported seeing the same thing — a flood of McCain ads and only a much smaller number of Obama ads.

When we checked in with Obama campaign, the impression we were given was that this was more a matter of viewer perception than reality. But the Post-Dispatch’s reporting makes it clear that in Missouri at least it is very much the reality.

I’ve got my hand on only a small patch of a national campaign elephant. But voter preferences are much more malleable in these early summer months than in the Fall. So I am curious to know why what we’re told is the heavily outfunded campaign is dominating the airwaves in at least some key areas.

John McCain met today with Franklin Graham, a man who looked forward to the Iraq War as an opportunity to expand Christianity in the Middle East. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Sunday Roundup.

Let me try a different approach. If you’re living in a media market where you’re seeing more Obama ads than McCain ads, can you drop us a line?

Late Update: These reports are, I hope it goes without saying, anecdotal. But the early feedback is revealing. Readers from states around the country report seeing substantially more McCain ads than Obama ads, with three exceptions — Virginia, Indiana and Montana.

Longtime TPM Reader LB checks in from Missouri, where McCain, for the moment at least, is outspending Obama:

The entire Republican campaign will be focused on making Obama the worst menu choice imaginable. Of course this will sully St. McCain’s reputation and he will be subject to all manner of criticism (the stuff DC Dems fear so much they’ll do anything to avoid). Nonetheless, the Republicans will take an ugly win over a noble loss any day.

They will use the summer months to shore up the old McCain image as “maverick”, “moderate” and independent. It’s all lies but they don’t care about that. The Democratic campaign meanwhile … is entirely new to the national game and has nothing like the experience of winning the Republicans have so they are essentially giving free ground to the opposition instead of going on the attack now when they have McCain down and could easily keep him down. …

The … Democrats are not planning on winning. They are planning how not to lose. Naturally, this is one of the best strategies known to man if you wish to lose the contest. Republicans on the other hand are actively planning on how they win. They know this necessarily includes doing all they can to sully Obama’s reputation and paint him as something he is not: untrustworthy, extreme, etc…

What we know, however, is that the Republicans have won the last two Presidential campaigns and have deep experience running a national operation, how to prepare for the fall and how to execute a take down of the opponent. The one thing Republicans rely on more than anything else is Democratic docility and inaction during summer and well into September. My view is that the best thing the Obama camp could do is not wait for the assault to begin (something they openly admit they are preparing for) but instead to launch their own assault. Were they to do this and put the Republicans on the defensive and keep them there until November it would reverse roles and give the Democrats the strategic advantage that is always so elusive to them in the fall campaigns.

Obama has the money to do this and the capacity to sustain it. Unfortunately, it looks to me as though all the signs point to the Obama campaign now becoming more and more focused on DC and listening to the wise heads in Washington whispering in their ears about how to handle things. Thus, we begin to see a replay of a great deal of what we’ve seen before: planning how not to lose instead of planning how to win. I hope I’m wrong. I hope the Obama people are developing a proactive, aggressive, in your face campaign to strike down McCain and the crap the Republicans are preparing. It’s just there are no signs that this is what is being planned. And so I am very worried.

Late Update: More, from TPM Reader PP:

I like other readers are very concerned about the Obama campaign’s approach regarding early ads, but is the relative lack of early advertising from the Obama campaign by design or is it a byproduct of a lengthy primary?

The McCain campaign wrapped up the nomination early which has allowed that campaign to get everyone in place as soon as the Democratic nomination was settled. Had Obama wrapped up the nomination in March, he would have had the time to plan an extensive ad campaign and the money to blanket the airwaves.

The lengthy primary drained his coffers, and it doesn’t help that the DNC’s fundraising has been pathetic in comparison to the RNC’s. If you look at DNC+Obama and look at RNC+McCain, the Democrats are, as usual, facing a fundraising gap.

This is why there are those of us who work in Democratic politics who are very concerned with the lack of money that is going to third party groups and who were concerned with the lack of an outside group that could have run advertisements against McCain while the Dem primary was going on.

Obama will be in Independence, Mo., this morning to deliver a speech on patriotism. That and the day’s other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.

According to Mike Allen at The Politico, Mitt Romney, our dream veep candidate, is topping McCain’s veep short list. The only thing standing in Mitt’s way, apparently, is his being such a tool.

In a stunning (only if you’ve had your head buried in the sands of Iraq these past 5 years) development, the NYT reports that the State Department was instrumental in arranging Iraq’s new oil contract with the big Western oil companies — even hiring a big oil consulting firm to help advise the Iraqis on how to get the deal done.

NYT reporter Steven Greenhouse joins us at TPM Cafe to talk about his new book, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker. In his opening post he provides a litany of disgraceful corporate behavior, like the time RadioShack laid off 400 workers in Fort Worth, Texas, via email: “The workforce reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.”