The First One
No, your ears were not deceiving you yesterday…but the first political ad of the 2024 presidential campaign aired on KXEL yesterday.
The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses are on February 5 of next year…and you’ve already heard me talk with declared presidential candidates here on the radio—three I can think of off the top of my head.
One of those, business entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, has put ads on the radio. He’s one of those who will speak in person at the big Faith & Freedom Coalition event a week from Saturday in Des Moines…and the ads are no doubt one way to help introduce himself to you before then.
The first television ads aired on Iowa stations during the Super Bowl, right at the one-year point before the caucuses…those were sponsored by businessman Perry Johnson, who was exploring a candidacy then but has since officially tossed his hat into the ring.
Most of the rest of the country is only focused on the 2024 race in a superficial way…even early primary states like New Hampshire don’t have the same urgency about things that Iowa does. That’s because we’re a caucus state and it takes a different approach–“retail politicking” they call it—to be successful here than in a primary state.
And you already can tell the first wave of the process is heating up, with so many candidates or would-be-candidates showing up at local events these days.
So we can officially declare it…the first ad was on the radio some ten months before the caucus. And you just know it won’t be the last.
