In the world of negative advertisement, campaigns often take words out of context but rarely do their targets bother trying to correct the record. Sure, they’ll put out a statement criticizing the attack, but that explanation rarely makes it on TV, for it would surely take too long to explain in a quick 30-second spot what the full context of a damaging soundbite was and why its use represents a distortion. And even when it could be possible to provide full context in that short a time, the explanation would surely take the whole ad and leave no time to make a wider point and go on the offensive.
Yet, Al Franken’s campaign has decided that it could tackle all these problems and that it had something to gain by devoting an entire one-minute ad to establishing context:
I have already talked about Republican ads attacking Al Franken for his temper and using footage of the Democrat using foul language and yelling in anger. This new ad consists of a long video of Al Franken telling the story of late Sen. Paul Wellstone jogging with his sun; towards the end of the story, Franken imitates Wellstone enthusiastically talking to his son - and that’s one of the moments the GOP selected in its attack ad. “That’s right,” the announcer says. “Ads for Norm Coleman use this footage of Al Franken telling this story about Paul Wellstone and his son and try to make is seem like he was angry. Minnesota deserves better.”
The Franken campaign needed an entire minute to make its case - a 30 second spot would not have sufficed - which pretty much explains why such spots are rare; not to mention that a one-minute ad naturally costs more money. But what makes the ad a strong one is that Franken needs to provide no further explanation beyond airing a longer version of the same clip; the ad does not parse words, nor does it feature explanations and rationales of what Franken meant or what he was trying to say. No ornaments, no clever music, just unedited footage: that usually makes for the most effective advertisement - just remember this one.
This ad is meant to not only disqualify Coleman’s attacks and the GOP’s temper argument but also tarnish Coleman with the taint of misleading ads. The Minnesota Senate race has been particularly nasty, and Republicans have run a campaign that is pretty much devoted to destroying Franken’s reputation through highly personal attacks. This has led some voters in the arms of third party candidate Dan Barkley, so there clearly is some discontent in the electorate about the level of negativity of the Senate campaign. Franken is trying to channel that discontent in this ad, which is as much about offense as it is about defense.
Whether it will work, of course, is unpredictable, and it also depends on how often it runs. But it is certainly an interesting strategy for the Franken campaign to adopt.
Alaska: Politico’s The Crypt and The Anchorage Daily News are providing some top notch coverage of the Ted Stevens’ trial, and the prosecution’s disdain for defense rights continues to be the dominant story so far: the prosecution has repeatedly failed to provide the defense team all the evidence the prosecution is using to make its case, and the judge blasted them yesterday for presenting evidence they knew was false. Some are suggesting that the Department of Justice is trying to sabotage the case, but that doesn’t make much sense. The DOJ brought the case to light, after all, and these prosecutors’ reputation is on the line. What is unfortunately not surprising, however, is for prosecutors to be looking to get a win at any cost and - whether or not you think Stevens is guilty - that is what looks to be happening here.
The judge did throw out some key evidence today because of the prosecution’s failure to provide it to the defense; and the judge actively contemplated dismissing the trial earlier this week. But the prosecution got away with too dire consequences for its mistakes again today: the judge was going to instruct the jury to take into account everything that was going on behind the scenes, but he quickly reversed course and did not deliver strong-worded instructions. Democrats’ electoral hopes in this race depend on a guilty verdict here, but the prosecutors’ mishandling of the case should at least make us somewhat uncomfortable with that prospect.
House: The two party’s campaign committees are continuing to map out the electoral map of the House battle by buying ad time in new districts - or by scaling buy their reservations in places they no longer think they have to or can afford to contest. And the day’s shocker comes from NE-02, the heavily Republican Omaha-based district that the Obama campaign is somewhat contesting and where the DCCC just took a $200,000 buy on behalf Jim Esch. Incumbent Lee Terry won 55% to 45% against Esch in 2006, and Democrats evidently feel they have a shot in this rematch. This is certainly an unexpected buy, and it is a testament to the depth of the DCCC”s pockets and to their determination to remake the electoral map.
Meanwhile, the NRCC is doing the contrary: it is canceling air time it had reserved for the upcoming weeks. The committee is now assessing its financial situation (which now includes an $8 million loan) to decide where they can afford to invest, and the result is not pretty: with less than four weeks to go and the NRCC having invested in none of these highly contested seats for now, the committee has pulled the plug on at least one week of planned advertising in FL-16, ID-01, KS-02, LA-06, MN-03, NM-01, NV-03 and TX-22. These seats are highly competitive, and all of them are rated in the lean or toss-up categories of my latest House ratings.
It is important not to overstate the importance of DCCC and RNCC expenditures, and perhaps I have been guilty of this lately myself. The RNCC pulling out of a district isn’t necessarily as dramatic news as, say, the McCain campaign’s pulling out of Michigan. McCain’s move left no funding for the GOP’s presidential efforts in the Wolverine state, whereas the House candidates themselves have money to use even when the RNCC drops out. But national funding is especially important for challengers and for candidates who are running for open seats, in other words those contenders who are likely to not have enough funds. And all but two of the districts listed above (ID-01 and NV-03) fall in that category.
These Republican challengers do not have the money that comes with incumbency, and they might now have to fend for themselves against the DCCC’s onslaught, which is advertising heavily in all of these seats but KS-02. Can Jenkins, who recently survived a bruising Republican primary, recoup enough financially to beat Nancy Boyda without the NRCC’s help? Can Darren White of NM-01 survive the hundreds of thousands dollars worth of attack ads airing against him by the DCCC now that the RNCC has decided it cannot afford to the same against Democrat Martin Heinrich? And while Bill Sali of ID-01 is an incumbent, he has never been a strong fundraising, making it that much more dependent on the RNCC’s help as well.
Chuck Todd made some interesting comments about the Franken race this AM. He said the Dems in power were really hoping that Franken would lose. They are worried he is a loose cannon and that it would make every liberal Hollywood celeb think they were qualified to be in the Senate. Think Alex Baldwin.
He also commented that the Dems really didn’t want to reach 60 Senators but rather 58 or 59 with a centerist Republicans making up the balance. He never explained his reasoning for this but I assume it gives them the option to fail or the fig leaf of bipartisanism if they need it.
Taniel: I read your excellent article in the Atlantic re McCain and the Armenians. I think Obama will do the same as all his predecessors and not keep his pledge to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. Turkey is just to important to Americian foreign policy concerns.
The Al Franken ad shows a moving TV set inset. Even with the blurry image you can tell this isn’t the same video. Al’s wearing a different shirt, facial expressions are different, it’s not the same video. I hope Norm Coleman can dig up the real video of Franken that they used and counter this ad. It would be so arrogant of Franken to try and stage something like this to make an ad to counter the Coleman attack.