neurotwitch

political ads: my plea to ned and diane

Here, in Connecticut, we’re have some very interesting congressional races going on. Tough ones. So, naturally, we have campaign commercials coming out the whazoo. So, here’s my take and my plea, for what it’s worth:

I ardently support Ned Lamont for Senate. Met him last February, just before he officially threw his hat into the ring. He listened to my questions, looked at me directly when giving me answers, listened to what I had to say. His sincerity, intelligence, and ability to think quickly and clearly came through. He addressed issues way beyond Iraq, such as healthcare and education. He came across as someone who’s really thinks things through and who really believes in what he’s saying.

But his tv ads don’t show the Ned Lamont I know. His primary ads were clever, and appropriate for then. Now, though, I want to hear directly from him. I want him to face the camera and tell me what he stands for. Clever doesn’t cut it any more. His latest anti-Iraq ad was very dramatic and well made, but we already know all this. Tell us what your position is on healthcare, on education, on civil liberties, on taking care of our veterans ... talk to us via camera like you do in person. I am so, so weary of clever, of graphics, of other people telling instead of the candidate telling. His commercial producers might win awards, but what they need to win are votes and I don’t see that happening. He’s not talking to the people who still haven’t made up their minds. Stop talking about what Joe does or does not do—start talking about what YOU want to do.

And I also support Diane Farrell for House of Representatives. It’s time for Chris Shays to go—it’s been long enough and he’s wrong about Iraq. But Farrell’s tv ad (I’ve only seen one, ad infinitum) is all about Chris Shays and his support of the war in Iraq. So is her website. But, Diane, what else do you stand for? What would you do differently?

Farrell’s campaign has been bothering me a lot, so much so that I wish there was someone else running against Shays. First was her pre-primary endorsement of Lieberman, which was a totally stupid and needless endorsement, especially given her seemingly one-issue campaign. Then it’s the total lack of grassroots effort—her campaign has struck me as so Democratic Party establishment, the same establishment that’s been losing local elections for the past ten years, that’s it’s almost offensive. The only time I get anything in the mail from her is when she sends invitations to her $1,000-a-ticket fundraisers, which is so far out of my league she may as well be a Republican. As much as I would have liked to hear what Madeline Albright had to say, I couldn’t afford the price of listening. Her campaign is very rich, very Westport—at least, that’s how it appears to this not-rich, non-Westporter. I also signed up to volunteer for her campaign, but never, ever heard from her except to ask me for money.

Come back to Planet Earth, Diane: most of the people who will be voting for you are not rich and don’t live in Westport. How about a commercial or two about YOU and what YOU believe? Talk to me, tell me why I should vote for you. Why should I trust you and not Shays?

I won’t get into the other ads for the other races since I can’t vote for those candidates. But it would be nice to hear from the candidates themselves in those ads, as well, since we have no choice but to view them as we watch tv on Connecticut stations.

1. I agree with you about the ads having the wrong tone.  We really do need to see more of the candidates and hear more about them, their positions, etc.  The way the current ads are composed, you hear more about the opponent than the candidate the ad purports to help.

   (And it’s not exclusive to CT - we have more than our share in the senate races in Maryland and Virginia, too.)

   Unfortunately, many in the “netroots” are gaga over these attack ads - and many within campaign organizations are in almost complete lockstep with the DailyKos/MyDD/FireDogLake crew, and don’t see that their target audience is not necessarily the folks camped out at their keyboards, but the folks who get their news from TV, radio and newspapers.

   In the case of Lamont, these ads do nothing to dispell the branding of his campaign as an angry, one-trick-pony operation.  He needs to talk about what he wants to do in Washington, and while a bit of comprare-and-contrast with Lieberman is inevitable (and warranted), it needs to be ALL ABOUT NED and ALL ABOUT CONNECTICUT.  However, I’m not holding out hope that Swan and Co. will listen.

   Posted by Rudi Riet  on  10/03  at  01:21 PM

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