A large hurricane is about to hit Florida, leading hundreds of thousands to evacuate their homes — and millions of others to watch more of the Weather Channel than they usually do.
Earlier this week, Hillary Clinton’s campaign adjusted its ad strategy to account for the latter fact, taking out a five-day, $63,000 ad buy on TWC to begin just as Hurricane Matthew makes landfall on Florida’s east coast.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush did not approve.
Bush’s former spokesperson Kristy Campbell delivered the same message with a bit less subtlety.
For once, the Trump campaign thought that the low-energy career politician had a point.
Eric Trump went so far as to call the ad strategy “evil.”
“I’m a guy who, maybe in a certain crazy way, believes in karma,” the GOP nominee’s son told radio host Bob Frantz. “There’s something pretty evil and sick about that if you ask me.”
And so, on Thursday, the Clinton campaign decided to delay its Weather Channel ads — until after most Floridians stop watching the Weather Channel.
“Earlier in the week, we made changes to our TV ad reservations across hundreds of stations in several battleground states including Florida,” Clinton spokesperson Jesse Ferguson told CNN. “Less than 1% of those changes included The Weather Channel. We have requested that stations in Florida delay any of those ads on the Weather Channel until after the storm passes.”
So, there will be no insensitive advertisements about how Americans are “Stronger Together” in Florida this weekend. For the state’s residents, what a relief that must be.
