Clinton scales back ad buy on Weather Channel before Matthew rolls in
The Hillary Clinton campaign said it would roll back its ad buy on The Weather Channel before Hurricane Matthew hit the Southeastern coast of the US.
According to a story on Business Insider, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said to reporters that the ad buy would be scaled back, originally said to be for $63,000 over five days.
“We have requested that stations in Florida delay any of those ads on The Weather Channel until after the storm passes,” said Clinton campaign spokesman Jesse Ferguson in a statement to the New York Post earlier Thursday.
Even a storm, it seems, is not impervious to politicizing, as Mook said that the ads would be scaled back, while ripping into Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus for “politicizing” the hurricane earlier in the day.
Priebus had criticized the Clinton campaign as “shameful” for the ad buy.
“Couldn't let this crisis go to waste?” Priebus tweeted earlier, suggesting that the Clinton campaign was exploiting the hurricane for political gain and asking Clinton to “apologize for using storm for votes.”
Matthew killed more than 250 people, and counting, on Haiti as it tore through the Caribbean nation, gearing up to a Category 4 storm before heading inland to Florida tonight and Friday morning.
While it is not obvious that Clinton was using the storm for political gain, the campaign decided to scale back the ads nonetheless.