Radio: the secret weapon.

President Clinton and Al Salvi, the Illinois Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, have something in common. The NRA and the Christian Coalition have something in common. Even Republican Phil Gramm and Democrat Paul Wellstone have something in common.

They have all taken a new approach to reaching voters through an old fashioned medium: radio. Radio has made a significant comeback in the general consumer marketing/advertising field. The medium's meteoric use in the political arena has been just as impressive.

Many people attribute radio's resurgence to Rush Limbaugh's notoriety. And even though his presence has kept radio in the forefront of successful political consultants, it really all began with Bill Clinton in 1992. Because, if you'll remember, even though the radio industry was enamored enough with Rush to elect him to their Hall of Fame after only a few years of service, there wasn't much to Limbaugh until there was Clinton. Limbaugh's audience increased 58 percent between February 1992 and March 1993, after Clinton's first months on the job. And how did Clinton get to where he is today? The same way Rush did: radio.

The Clinton/Gore campaign in 1992 broke new ground in political campaigning on several fronts: they used "free media" to gain national exposure by appearing on Arsenio and MTV, and they began their paid advertising long before Labor Day. But the real secret weapon of that campaign might have been the Frank Greer/Mandy Grunwald-inspired use of radio.

The Clinton campaign made prudent use of radio by matching the message to the medium. They targeted their radio messages by state and, in some cases, by radio format.

Heavy liberal messages aired only in liberal markets. Radio messages concerning the oil and gas industry were delivered in Louisiana, a swing state, by Louisiana-accented voices. Radio ads ran in programming with intensely loyal listenership - programs like statewide newscasts or college football.

It wasn't just a five-day blitz before the election either, when radio and TV messages have a tendency to get blurred. The Clinton camp began their "imaging" radio campaign nearly 10 weeks before election day. Their secret media weapon: radio.

Clinton won 12 of his 13 targeted states by rather narrow margins. Georgia's 13 electoral votes were decided by less than one percent. The vote difference may be attributed to a guerrilla warfare-style radio campaign that was employed on over 100 Georgia radio stations in statewide news programs for 10 weeks, reaching an average of over one million Georgian voters per week. Total cost: less than $100,000.

Which brings us to Al Salvi. Illinois Republicans are still reeling from one of the state's biggest political surprises in recent memory. Salvi's victory in the GOP Senate primary earlier this year over party-endorsed Bob Kustra was greatly helped by good use of radio.

Three weeks before the primary, Salvi found himself trailing Kustra. Enter a statewide radio campaign with heavy focus on downstate rural markets. Salvi ran radio ads targeting adults 35+ (the real voters) in listener attentive news programs which featured state issues. Salvi was able to turn a double digit deficit in the polls into a victory. The largest margin of votes came from rural downstate Illinois, where Kustra was supposedly the better known candidate. Considering that Salvi was a state representative from a Chicago suburb in the northern part of the state, his downstate victory (an area of Illinois that is very hard to reach with TV) is even more impressive. His radio campaign reached over nine million voters in three weeks at a cost of less than $40,000. This is even more noteworthy because Kustra's campaign used little to no radio to promote his candidacy.

Clinton and Salvi are not the first or the last political campaigns to use radio as a secret tactical weapon. In fact, numerous public interest groups, PACs, and associations - ranging from the AFL-CIO to the National Rifle Association - have made significant use of radio. Radio's ability to target citizens with fast turnaround time, and its weekly reach of most voters contribute to its effectiveness. Wise campaign consultants and candidates have taken advantage of radio by zeroing in on reliable voters by running ads in popular news programs.

More recently, the health care debate was taken to the masses via radio. Private interest groups ran geographically targeted radio campaigns in states where certain senators held key committee positions in an attempt to sway public opinion and, more importantly, to get citizens to call, write and fax their elected officials.

Radio always hangs onto its audience. Since 1920, when KDKA delivered the first Harding-Cox election results, radio's impact on elections has stayed strong. And as radio enters it's 76th year, it can be said that this political secret weapon has aged quite gracefully.

Tom Dobrez is president of StateNets, a radio placement firm.