Obama Starts Buying Cable - Time to Look at Comedy Central, Cartoon Network

The Washington Post is reporting that Barack Obama is the first candidate to purchase national TV ad time in the Super (Fat) Tuesday contests. So far, Obama has purchased air time on CNN and MSNBC.

This is a new phase in the Democratic nominating process, and one that most of us are not used to seeing. The campaigns - at least Clinton and Obama - are now in a position where they need to run a national contest between now and February 5th. The crazy thing is that because of online fundraising and the growth of small-dollar donors, they actually have the cash to do this well.

For Obama, this has to mean one of two things - and most likely both. First, he's got to cede control and totally decentralize his field operation. He can't focus all his resources on one place and the candidate can't be in every state holding events and making his case. His supporters - online and offline - are going to have to be the standard bearers of his message.

Second, he's going to need to take the advice of the New Politics Institute and use cable TV ad-buys to target young voters. In Iowa and New Hampshire, the Obama campaign focused a lot of attention on young voters. They did hundreds of rallies, shook thousands of hands. The candidate was a real presence in those states. And the youth vote turned out in big numbers for Obama, even driving him to victory in Iowa with a massive turnout that was equal to 22% of the total electorate.

In Nevada, the candidate was much less of a presence until the final week. There were other mitigating factors as well, but this was in part one of the reasons for low youth turnout (compared to the rest of the electorate) in Nevada. That in turn was a primary reason why Obama lost the popular vote in the state.

If he's going to win on February 5th, Obama will need to find a way to reach out and speak to those voters; to make his presence known and impress upon them the importance of voting in their local primary/caucus. Cable buys can be a cheap and efficient way to do that by targeting young people who watch prime-time and late-night shows on Comedy Central, Cartoon's Network's Adult Swim, and MTV's reality series (yeah, trust me, a lot of 20 somethings still tune in).

Buying cable isn't as sexy as grassroots, decentralized organizing facilitated by the web. Nor is it a replacement for those activities. But it is one other weapon in the campaign arsenal that can help the candidate reach out and speak directly to younger voters at a time when the retail politics that helped him win in Iowa are just not possible.