Obama buys half-hour of network primetime

Sen Barack Obama (D-IL) has purchased a half-hour of airtime on CBS. The Obama campaign will air a half-hour primetime special on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m. Sources say the Obama camp is also in talks with NBC and Fox. NBC is said to be very near a deal. With Fox, the matter is likely to remain uncertain as the time period could conflict with Game 6 of the Chicago-less World Series. The direct purchase of such a large block of national airtime right before an election used to be more commonplace before campaigns began to focus their end game strategies exclusively on battleground states. Such a move is not without precedent in modern presidential politics, however -- Ross Perot did a similar purchase in 1992.