Eagle-eyed campaign watchers have noticed that outside-spending groups often air their advertisements just as the candidate’s own ads go off the air, meaning that voters never stop seeing ads from a certain point of view, as Bloomberg News reported in August. Increasingly, the ads even carry the same theme and identical cuts of B-roll footage. These trends are on display in the competitive Senate elections this year, from New Hampshire to Alaska. While some have theorized that the candidates and outside groups communicate via public “dumps” of video and information—which may be the case in some instances—an easier route for coordination exists: simply hiring the same consultants and media agencies. Just as McConnell and the American Crossroads groups share an ad producer (the aforementioned Larry McCarthy), they also share a media-buying agency, Mentzer Media, which has flooded the Kentucky race with ads critical of McConnell’s Democratic opponent. The Towson, Maryland–based agency has collected over $4 million this year from Crossroads (for ad buys in races across the country) and $3.2 million from McConnell.
Source: How Mitch McConnell Is Bending Every Last Campaign Finance Rule | The Nation
