No matter what you expect to see on TV on Wednesday night, you stand a good chance of seeing Barack Obama.
The Democratic presidential nominee has bought a chunk of prime time on several networks to seal the deal with voters. Obama's half-hour commercial is scheduled to run at 8 on CBS, Fox, NBC, MSNBC and Univision.
The Obama campaign paid just under $1 million apiece to CBS and to Fox. Fox asked Major League Baseball to delay the first pitch in the World Series game so it could air the ad.
J. Max Robins, vice president of the Paley Center for Media and former editor of Broadcasting & Cable, says it is a smart move.
"When are those unique times when you see a television programming roadblock across all the major networks focused on one person? By and large, when it's someone [who] is president of the United States," he said.
But this is a candidate, not a president; the last candidate to make a similar purchase of TV time was billionaire Ross Perot in 1992.
Republican presidential nominee John McCain sought to make Obama's show of strength into a liability.
"He's measuring the drapes, and he's planned his first address to the nation before the election. By the way, no one will delay the World Series game for an infomercial when I'm president," McCain said.
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