Remember in January of 2010, when Martha Coakley, seeing a looming disaster in the upcoming election, ran a classic scary-voice, grainy-image attack ad against Scott Brown (complete with embarrassing misspelling of “Massachusetts” in the fine print at the end), and Brown parried it brilliantly with a response where he’s standing in his kitchen talking directly to voters? Here’s how they went, if you’d forgotten.
In light of Elizabeth Warren’s just-released ad of the boxing coach from Lowell, Brown is trying exactly the same play. The text of the two Brown ads is startlingly similar, and Brown appears even to be wearing the same sweater in both of them. Here are the two ads from this cycle.
Even the music in Brown’s two ads, up-tempo, major-key, meandering background stuff, is strikingly similar. Here’s the text of the two Brown ads:
| Brown’s response to Coakley | Brown’s response to Warren |
| I’m Scott Brown running for the United States Senate. By now, you’ve probably seen the negative ads launched by Martha Coakley and her supporters. Instead of discussing issues like health care and jobs, they decided the best way to stop me is to tear me down. But the old way of doing things won’t work anymore. Their attack ads are wrong, and go too far. I’m Scott Brown, and I approve this message because I’m running in the name of every independent-thinking voter to take on the political machine and their candidate. And with your help, I intend to win. | Have you seen Elizabeth Warren’s latest ads? Instead of talking about things that matter, like jobs, she’s being dishonest about who I am and what I stand for. Don’t be fooled by Elizabeth Warren’s negative attacks. Like a lot of you, I came from nothing. I’m on your side, fighting for the middle class. An independent voice you can count on to create a stronger economy and more jobs for all of us. I’m the same Scott Brown I’ve always been, and I approve this message because I’m nobody’s Senator but yours. |
But the problem, and the reason why Brown’s response is so ineffective this time, is simple: Warren’s ad is not an “attack” in any meaningful sense of the word. Yes, the ad discusses several votes that Brown has taken in the Senate. But that surely does not constitute an “attack.” And Warren’s ad, instead of adopting grainy-image scary-voice techniques, simply has a well-known and likable boxing coach from Lowell talking, in an entirely non-scary way, about why he thinks Warren would be a better Senator than Brown. Further – and I think this is an important difference – the Coakley ad said nothing about Coakley herself; it was pure negative attack. But the Warren ad talks more about Warren than about Brown, about how she’s a fighter, etc. So Brown’s response this time is weirdly off-key, and just seems defensive and whiny. Like Brown himself.
Fumble.
Discuss
8 Comments . Leave a comment below.I get why Brown’s campaign went back to the same well, but I don’t understand why they put him in front of a white background. Being in his kitchen for the last one helped a lot.
another reason this year’s effort seems like a half-hearted and misplaced effort to recreate the magic of 2010.
While I’m not going to post the the fundraising links, find them yourself johnd.
It’s seems like this is Brown’s tact, don’t defend your votes, play the victim. Sniff, sniff.
But the problem here is that we are the victims of Brown’s votes and Brown should defend his voting record to his constituents.
If Scott Brown in so independent, why isn’t he running as one? Angus King is. Scotty isn’t… Just asking… someone ask him… will he caucus with the Dems and advance his buddy O’s agenda, or do what he has done before and vote against it?
undercurrent of entitlement and whininess about being attacked in Scott Brown.
Those Boston Herald types also like to be aggrieved.
If I were Elizabeth Warren, I’d gently call him on his whining when the time comes. As someone who has been grilled by GOP congressmen and showed no fear when she called Tim Geithner on being a Wall Street tool, she knows what it’s like to be attacked as well as not supported.
Scott Brown has an amazing ability to attack people without appearing to attack them. He pretends to be a victim, but he is the actual aggressor. In this ad, he tells people not to be fooled by Elizabeth Warren’s dishonesty. Basically, while pretending to be a victim, his ad is really an attack ad on Elizabeth, and he is calling her a liar. Unfortunately, many people in Massachusetts will believe Scott.
Is he puts the clip of Elizabeth Warren from her famous youtube video up there, as he’s talking about her making negative ads, as if to hoodwink them into thinking that was the negative ad he was talking about.
Without the sound on her youtube video, which he’s muted, she does look like an angry big meanie — instead of deeply passionate, which is what she clearly is in the ‘you didn’t build that (road)’ youtube vid, with the sound turned on.
Hopefully people will realize the utter dishonestly and attempted manipulation he has going on in his ad, but I think they’re going to have to see (and remember enough to think critically about) her two ads in relation to his.
My guess is, over all, because of the dishonesty in his ad it will fall somewhat flat, but don’t underestimate the number of people who fully believe he’s an aww-shucks nice guy and will believe anything he says. That’s an uncomfortably large segment of independents.
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Hilarious that he’s wearing the same ugly sweater vest.
in the “He’s for Us” tagline on his signs. I think it mostly is to promote his regular guy image which is reasonable. The other meaning it to create a question if “He’s For Us” who is she for. Is she for the others? Who are the others that she could be for?
He whines well –it did work for him last time. He certainly has been the beneficiary of a lot of surrogates attack Warren; the Herald, all the hard right talk shows, and the pretend moderate talk shows. Dan Rea and BZ seem deeply in the tank. I havent heard the Andelmans since Eddie retired – wonder if they are shilling for him to.
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