The Selling of the Candidates, 2008

In the non-stop jockeying among the Republican presidential candidates for money, exposure, legitimacy -- you name it - Mitt Romney can claim a first. He placed more local television ads than all other candidates combined.

That's according to Nielsen company tracking, which found that the former Massachusetts governor had 4,549 ads, mostly on local television, through June 10. Romney spent upwards of $4 million on those ads, which some have derided as uninspiring. He ran is spots in the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire and five other locales.

While Romney cornered a traditional media outlet, his Republican rival John McCain took the lead in online paid advertising. The Arizona senator had 12 times more exposure than other candidates, according to Nielsen, which said McCain grabbed the lead with his online push in April.

Even so, he only placed fourth in the number of unique visitors to a presidential candidate's website that month, trailing Romney but especially Barack Obama, whose web site led all candidates' in the number of visits in April.

While all the candidates are trying to get nationally known by calibrating the right mix of new and old media, Democrats are dominating the new media, according to Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

Democratic candidates have generated twice as many online mentions in blogs and discussions, with Obama garnering the greatest number, Nielsen reported. Hillary Clinton has been laboring to move up from a distant second, attracting some attention by fielding an online parody of the closing scene of the Soprano series finale.

Even so, candidates are not neglecting the old media, with Rudy Giuliani choosing what some might say is old, old media. He has run hundreds of radio ads -- twice as many as Romney. The former New York mayor's ads have appeared in most major U.S. media outlets.

by Elizabeth Olson