McCain grabs top Google ad spot for searches on Joe Biden

DENVER--If you thought that the Republican Party would try to overshadow the Democratic convention this week and the attention paid to Barack Obama's choice of a running mate, you'd be right. Just do a search on Google.

As The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, the McCain campaign has nabbed the top ad spot on Google for the search terms "Joe Biden" and "Biden." Presumably it outbid the Democrats for the top spot.

The ad that appeared reads, "What Does Joe Biden Say About Barack Obama? Find Out Today!" and takes searchers to a page on McCain's site with a 30-second ad showing Biden in a debate saying that Obama is not ready to be president, followed by a clip of the Delaware senator saying he would be honored to run with McCain because "the country would be better off."

By around 1 p.m. PDT, the ad at the top of the page had disappeared and a McCain ad had been moved to a less-visible position on the right side of the page, below the one from the actual Obama-Biden campaign.

The McCain camp was the highest bidder for ad space tied to the Biden terms and has also bought search ads for terms like "U.S. economy" and "housing crisis."

This is an offline effort as well. Just a couple of miles away from Invesco Field, where Obama is scheduled to accept the nomination to be the Democratic presidential candidate on Thursday night, a plane circled overhead this week pulling a banner that reads, "Biden was right--Obama not ready."

An ad from John McCain's campaign appears above the ad from the Obama campaign on searches for "Joe Biden," as well as "Biden."

[Pete Bardo]

Well, look at that. johnmccain.com is at the top of your Sponsored Links. It might not be there now, but it sure was when I posted this. Does Cnet make much money from AdSense? I can't get relevant ads to show on our site, how did you manage to get these great ads on your page. Even the Gay Rights link seems appropriate.

[JOE68REP]

McCain graduated 894th out of 899 Annapolis graduates at the bottom of the class. Obama graduated #1 at Harvard Law School. McCain lies about Obama's tax plan. Compare your own tax break at:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidates_taxproposals_tpc/index.htm?postversion=2008061115

[gerrrg]

And, Barack Obama was the President of the Harvard Law Review.

No Way, No How, No McCain.

[michaelo1966]

This ad was on CNET's ads, right below the comment section. I clicked. I cost the GOP something. I'm not convinced by their page, and voting for Obama/Biden. This is fun; it's like the opposite of clicking an Obama ad and donating. I wonder if they put an upper limit on how much the ads cost?