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By  Louis Jacobson
PoliticsPA Contributing Writer

Could Pennsylvania’s busy political year in 2010 lead to saturated airwaves in the Philadelphia media market this fall? The situation is still evolving, but there’s little question that competitive races will be bountiful in the Philadelphia area this fall.

For the U.S. House alone, there’s the fierce open-seat battle to succeed Joe Sestak, who gave up his Delaware County-based seat to run for U.S. Senate. There’s Bucks County-based Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, who is set to face the lawmaker he unseated two cycles ago, Republican Mike Fitzpatrick. And there are two Republicans in the U.S. House who face competitive Democratic challenges – Jim Gerlach, who represents portions of Montgomery, Berks and Chester counties, and Charlie Dent, who represents the Lehigh Valley.

Of course, there’s a barnburner race for U.S. Senate between Sestak and former GOP Rep. Pat Toomey.

There are a bunch of statewide offices in Pennsylvania that are up in 2010, headlined by the open-seat gubernatorial race between Republican Tom Corbett and Democrat Dan Onorato. And control of the state House is on a knife’s edge, so competitive, Philadelphia-area seats in the legislature could also be seeking airtime.

Meanwhile, regions outside Pennsylvania that rely on the Philly media market will also be vying for air time this fall.

In the southern New Jersey U.S. House district centered on Cherry Hill, Democratic Rep. John Adler faces a stiff challenge from former pro football player Jon Runyan, a Republican.

In Delaware, the parties will contest the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Ted Kaufman. The GOP candidate for that seat is Rep. Mike Castle, who’s a frontrunner but not a shoo-in, while former Democratic lieutenant governor John Carney is favored in the race to fill Castle’s House seat.

And it won’t just be the candidates’ own campaign operations that could be placing ads. Also potentially in the game will be Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Democratic Governors Association, the Republican Governors Association, and any number of other independent-expenditure campaigns, such as unions and business groups.

It’s also worth noting that for the first midterm cycle since 1998, Ed Rendell won’t be heading the Democratic ticket. Rendell was a one-man turnout machine in southeastern Pennsylvania, and without him running, the entire region could become more competitive for the GOP, reversing the trend of the last decade, especially given that 2010 is widely considered to favor the GOP. That could drive both Democrats and Republicans to run more ads in the Philadelphia market.

In addition, many of the candidates in the bigger races aren’t well known in southeastern Pennsylvania, statewide, or both. That’s true to varying degrees for Sestak, Toomey, Onorato, and Corbett. So these candidates may need a decent amount of TV advertising just to break through to voters.

One Democratic consultant told PoliticsPA that an election season this crowded is not unprecedented. In 2006, he noted, there was a heated U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania between then-Sen. Rick Santorum (R) and Robert Casey (D); a reelection bid by Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Ed Rendell; a competitive race in New Jersey between Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and Republican challenger Tom Kean Jr.; a competitive race for state attorney general in Delaware; and several hot races for the U.S. House.

While this consultant insisted that it was unlikely that there would be an actual shortage of airtime for political ads come fall, he speculated that the high demand could lead stations to hike prices, making ad spots more expensive.

Sources at Philadelphia media outlets said they are not yet seeing an early rush on candidates buying ad time.

But if it turns out that ad spots in the Philadelphia market will become more expensive later this year, and possibly harder to secure at all, that could have some consequences on how candidates run their races, political experts said.

“In general, it is the lesser-known candidates, usually challengers, who need the advertising most, so any shortage would probably hurt them and help incumbents,” said Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California (San Diego) and a longtime watcher of the television campaign wars. “On the other hand, it must also depend on who has the money early to buy up the slots, so if there is some wealthy outsider willing to invest in advance, he might have a leg up.”

Jacobson added that he would extensive “efforts at attracting free coverage from news media–stunts, outrageous Internet ads designed to be picked up by TV and newpapers, and lots of radio advertising.”

Cliff Zukin, a Rutgers University political scientist, agreed that challengers have the most to lose in an environment with limited or expensive airtime.

“Let’s assume that voters know very little about the candidates,” Zukin said. “They fall back on the party labels of Democratic and Republican as a guide to their behavior. If the campaign is more visible, voters have other information to base a decision on besides party.”

Among those running for U.S. House, Democrat Bryan Lentz and Republican Pat Meehan – the contenders to succeed Sestak – could be hurt by tight media market since both could use a boost in their name identification. That should be less of a problem for Fitzpatrick, who’s a former lawmaker and who’s posted strong fundraising numbers, or for Dent’s challenger, John Callahan, who is well known from his tenure as mayor of Bethlehem.

Meanwhile, Gerlach’s challenger, Manan Trivedi, also needs to increase his name identification, but Trivedi won his primary with grassroots support, which gives him a way around an airtime crunch if one develops.

PoliticsPA asked political observers in several other states that have had similarly crowded election seasons for their experiences.

“When we’ve had those situations, it’s the down-ticket candidates who get squeezed out,” said one political journalist in Iowa, a state that has had a run of recent competitive contests at the presidential, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and gubernatorial levels in recent cycles. “Some candidates turn to radio, and cable gets a lot of ads. It would make sense for campaigns to get creative and try to reach people with social media and Internet advertising.”

Another Iowa political reporter agreed that lower-level races have been squeezed out in recent cycles.

“Congressional and U.S. Senate candidates could ‘compete’ in the marketplace, primarily because they could amass funds early and buy spots before crunch time, but candidates for the Iowa legislature got somewhat shut out,” the reporter said. “In some instances, in the lead-up, the local 5 pm, 6 pm and 10 pm newscasts were full of political ads and little else. In talking with ad managers, this drives them a little crazy, as traditional, dependable advertisers get completely shut out for a few weeks when the ‘temporary’ ads are selling.”

New Hampshire is another state that has been chock full of competitive races in recent cycles, including presidential, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and gubernatorial races. Linda Fowler, a Dartmouth College political scientist who has closely followed New Hampshire politics, said that candidates risk losing control of their message if they can’t afford to stay in the air wars.

On the other hand, she added, “the positive is the opportunity to coordinate turnout efforts.” She suggested that being forced to do more grass-roots organizing could help the Democrats, whose voter turnout in midterm elections usually sags more than GOP turnout – if the party manages to do its grassroots work effectively.

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