Scott Finn

If a television or radio station determines that a political ad is false, should it refuse to run the ad?

That's exactly what the nonpartisan group Free Press is calling on stations to do.

"They certainly could reject some of them," said Matt Wood, the group's policy director.

At the very least, they could do more fact checking, he said.

It's been a rough week for my adopted hometown.

First, it looked like our worst nightmare would come true: a direct hit from Hurricane Isaac with tens of thousands of visitors in town for the Republican National Convention.

We were spared the worst of Isaac — but then came a raft of snarky stories about Tampa.

Ask your average American about Florida, and you'll hear something like this: It's hot, it has Disney World, and lots of old people live there.

And since the weather and Mickey Mouse don't make good attack ads, both presidential campaigns are trying to scare the bejeezus out of Florida's senior population over Medicare.

Here's the above-the-fold headline on Sunday's Miami Herald: "Ryan could hurt Romney in Florida."

At the end of August, the eyes of the political world turn to Tampa, Fla., for the Republican National Convention. It promises to dominate the national and local news in Tampa Bay that week and suck all the political air out of the room.

So if you're the Obama campaign, what do you do? How do you counterprogram Romney-palooza?

Apparently, by buying lots of TV airtime on The Bachelor, Dr. Oz and Rachael Ray.