Edited lightly right after posting, to correct typos.
Has anyone seen Deval’s new ad, “After?” I think it’s one of the best the campaign has done to date. It goes after Romney-Healey vigorously–Skeffington should find some satisfaction in this one–but it is nothing like the sleaze Healey’s put out. It’s neither unfair nor one that stoops to the ugly politics of demonization. It manages, amidst a stream of criticism, to take Healey on for her despicable copkiller ad, AND it ends with a smile and a positive message. Comrades, if you got worried in the past few days, this is a reminder of why our guy’s been leading all along, and why he’s such a better politician than Healey or…well, almost anybody. If you haven’t seen it, and want to end your day with a little lift, check it out.
Brilliant!
This ad has everything.
Crushing property tax hikes forced by local aid cuts. (Healey standing behind Romney as he signs the aid cuts.)
Higher crime.
Cities and towns slashing police officers – visual of concerned police officer answering call.
Near last in jobs growth.
Worst public works disaster in MA history – Fatal consequences, oversight at root of Big Dig ceiling collapse.
Romney and Healey together – all they have left to offer is misleading negative ads.
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Tired of the same old politics? Enter Deval with a large dose of hope and fresh ideas.
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Nothing else to say, unless you can find a photo of Healey with Bush or Cheney.
1. I know that Muffy is self-financing — but here’s an idea:
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Chris Gabrielli still has something left in his piggy bank, right? He can put on his OWN ad pointing out how Willard-Muffy hurt the stuff he cares about –stem-cell research, business development, education, etc.
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2. I don’t have an inside pipeline to Deval’s financial people, but I’d like to see some ad money used ASAP to counter the crap Muffy’s people are putting out there and tell the truth about her — like the sweetheart tax break she got for her hubby, her contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law, the various flip-flops, etc., etc.
pictures of Healey dancing at Bush’s innauguration.
I think his best ads are where he himself speaks.
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He should have made an ad that basically said something like this:
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“Look, Kerry Healey and her friends are terrified that a people-powered movement has risen up and challenged the same-old Beacon Hill politics. That’s why she’s running negative, misleading ads. The truth is that I have years of experience as a federal prosecutor, while Kerry Healey has been a criminal theorist and her administration has watched violent crime skyrocket across the state. If people want real change in November, vote for me.”
I think it’s the WORST ad of the campaign.
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Why?
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It may not be sleazy, but it IS “politics as usual”. And it sends a very alarming message to the electorate and to the Healy Campaign: “Your negative ads are getting to us”.
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The ball right now is completely controlled by the Healy Campaign, and the media is only to glad to come along with the ride.
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The Patrick campaign has to change the conversation, which they are fundamentally NOT going to do with this ad. Why? Because it’s a response ad. It almost doesn’t matter WHAT it says, it’s tone and its style is pure response to an attack ad. It only keeps the conversation going.
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Up until this point, Patrick’s advertising has been pretty unique. Some weren’t great, but they weren’t stinkers, and others WERE great: capturing the energy of the candidate and his campaign.
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This ad was a turn in the wrong direction. Shout into an echo chamber and guess what happens.
I agree with you that it would be great to change the conversation. The question is, How? Healey poured a bunch of money into hysterical, fear-mongering spots and, regrettably, got the media to turn her noxious irrelevancies into THE focus of campaign coverage. What’s the best way to respond? Not by doing the same spots our campaign has run before. It’s true, as you say, that Deval’s previous ads have been distinctive, and some (though not all) have been really excellent. I’d single out #3, (“If you want Massachusetts to get up off its knees…”), and I’d agree with Ryan that, in general, nobody can speak for Deval the way he can speak for himself. But if the point is to change the conversation, neither a re-telling of Deval’s life story nor outtakes from one of his amazing rallies is going to do that. We need issue ads that put Healey on the defensive. That’s what his new ad does. It offers a sweeping tour of the failures of the Romney-Healey administration, which means it puts onto the agenda the issues Deval wants to talk about, such as property taxes and jobs, and it does so while also turning Healey’s attack ad into a symptom of her desperation. That IS changing the conversation. And hard-hitting as Deval’s ad is, the tone is not the same as that of Healey’s Hortonizing commercials; again, this piece ends, literally, with a smile. At bottom, this spot asks, “Do you want change or more of the same?” If that’s the frame for this election, then no matter how hard Healey tries to appropriate the “together we can” vibe, she’s in big, big trouble. But be clear on this: Healey’s going to focus on crime and employ the politics of fear-mongering (with all of the attendant racial subtexts) from now until election day. She’s going to hit very hard. Deval shouldn’t, as he put it, “get into the gutter” with her. I don’t believe he will. Like the rest of us, he surely recognizes that his hopeful enthusiasm and his distance from typical party hackery are a big part of his appeal. But leaving Healey unchallenged, leaving her malevolent attacks unanswered and competing only with broad messages about hope and energy strikes me as a very dangerous and self-deluding move. Walking the line between being hard-hitting and coming off as another mud-throwing politician is pretty tricky; I think the new spot does the job with impressive agility.
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P.S. My other favorite ad of the primary season, #4, “Shell,” was also a rejoinder to attack ads. Of course, it featured Deval speaking to the camera, and his reproaches had a “more in sorrow than in anger” tone. But the attacks he was fighting off then were less hard-hitting and the spot was addressing intramural fighting among Democrats. The current context is very different, and while there may yet be a great opportunity to make a new analogue to that ad, it would be a big mistake to think that the dynamics or imperatives of this general election stage are the same as those of a primary.