Obama Virtual Ad

The creativity of the Obama campaign never ceases to amaze me.  Via TPM, we see that Barack Obama is now buying virtual ad space in online games:

Last week we noted unconfirmed sightings of an “Obama for President” billboard in the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise. Today we’re able to report that it is, in fact, an official advertisement placed by the senator’s campaign team. “I can confirm that the Obama campaign has paid for in-game advertising in Burnout,” Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher, told me via email, noting that EA regularly allows ad placements in their online games.

Pundits have been sharing numerous theories about why Obama is pulling so far ahead.  Many people are explaining that the economy going down hill will favor the Democrats, since they’re seen as better on domestic issues-although there’s never any context given for why that is.  And there are lots of analyses of the erratic McCain campaign, leaping from crazy stunt to crazy stunt and why that’s harmed his numbers.  And that’s definitely part of it-Sarah Palin’s nonsensical interviews, her numerous scandals, the “campaign suspension,” the amazingly negative attacks on Obama, these have all hurt McCain. But these miss one of the big factors in the state of the race: Barack Obama is running one of the best campaigns I have ever seen.  And one based off of an amazingly simple strategy.  Raise lots of money, and use it to hire lots of organizers, buy lots of ad space, and make sure that absolutely no venue that can be used to reach people has been overlooked.  Who’d have thought something so obvious could work so well?