Spending campaign dollars wisely

John Hinderaker touches on something I have often wondered myself:

I watched a little CNN over the lunch hour today. At one point, the newscast was interrupted by an ad for a Democratic political candidate. I had to wonder: why would a Democrat advertise on CNN? After all, the network's programming is basically a 24/7 commercial for the Democratic Party. Why pay to interrupt it?

Why indeed? It seems as if the smart Democrat would advertise on the pro-Republican Fox News and the smart Republican would advertise on the pro-Democrat CNN. Isn't winning elections mostly about winning over moderate and crossover voters? Yes, turnout is important, but the kind of voters who watch much cable news are going to turn out anyway, why not get your message out to possible swing voters?

Unless your message is a blatant lie, in which case you might want to run it where nobody will see it, like maybe MSNBC.