Political analysts say Obama’s fundraising edge has allowed him to spend record amounts of money on campaign advertising. On October 29, Obama plans to buy a half hour of air time on NBC, CBS and Fox to address the nation in prime time. John McCain has already been forced to stop buying time on national networks or national cable.

Darrell West of the Brookings Institution: “The successful fundraising allows Obama to be competitive in a much larger number of states than McCain is. McCain doesn’t have that much money. He’s had to pull out of Michigan, pull out of a few other places. Obama is able to advertise in all the places where he wants to advertise, and he also has a large number of field operations in some of those crucial battleground states, so it puts him in a very strong position to conclude this race on a very strong finish.”