Candidates face dwindling funds

With their campaign treasuries running on empty and only weeks to attract support in the nearly two dozen states that will cast ballots on Feb. 5, candidates for president are scrambling to find creative and unorthodox ways to grab the attention of voters with the money they have left.

At least two of the 2008 presidential contenders, seeking bang for their buck, have privately discussed bypassing a barrage of targeted local ads in favor of buying a more effective spot to run during the Feb. 3 Super Bowl broadcast, a move that would come with a price tag of almost $3 million. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., on Monday became the first to make a nationwide cable-television advertising buy on CNN and MSNBC, which are relatively cheap, and several candidates were putting resources into new methods of targeting absentee voters.

None of the campaigns has decided yet to take the Super Bowl gamble, but it is one of scores of spending possibilities presidential-campaign strategists are considering as the approach the biggest day ever of primary voting in history.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Obama each raised more than $100 million last year but have spent it at a furious rate.

Democrats will hold contests in 22 states and one territory, with 1,681 delegates at stake. Republicans have scheduled contests in 21 states for Feb. 5, known as Super Tuesday, with 975 delegates at stake. Voters in early voting states experienced a blizzard of commercials and mailboxes jammed with literature, but those living in delegate-rich California might reach Election Day with very little contact from the presidential candidates.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney may be the exception. He has said he will supplement individual donations with a sizable investment from his personal fortune.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has told aides that he will face a big financial disadvantage coming out of Florida, and that instead of relying on ads, he will schedule as many appearances as possible on national television shows.

Obama and Clinton have undertaken what California political strategists call "chase campaigns," because they attempt to time voter contact to the arrival of absentee ballots in the mailboxes of some voters.

"You're literally chasing the ballot," said Matthew Klink, a California campaign strategist who is not affiliated with a presidential candidate.

Clinton and Obama have also begun to court a broader audience in California. Obama was the first to launch TV ads there, airing a TV spot in the San Francisco Bay Area. Clinton's campaign put up her first California TV ad on Thursday.

Advertising in California alone is "a hugely costly enterprise," said Don Sipple, a Republican media consultant in the state. He said simply to air ads in the Los Angeles market, where about 45 percent of the state's population gets its broadcast television, could run $4.5 million per week.

Sipple predicted few candidates would invest the money there, opting instead for buys on cable and in smaller markets. "You have to be much more sophisticated and much more targeted," he said.