This is the first TV spot from netroots favorite and Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq author Darcy Burner. Now, Darcy ran in 2006 under the thumb of DC consultants, but this time, she's running a more authentic and progressive campaign. Comparing her bio spot this time, when she's strong enough to know how to run a campaign, with her bio spot from 2006 shows us everything that's wrong with hack cookie cutter media consultants. Here's this year's spot:
Here's the same spot, in 2006.
There are so many differences it's hard to know where to start. In her new spot, she's the narrator, rather than a bloodless generic female voice. She talks about working her way through Harvard, owning her background, and emphasizes how she helped other women succeed at Microsoft. Darcy's kind of a geek about problem-solving, and this comes out clearly in a sympathetic and likeable way, as she uses a story about helping Mom's come together to offer freeing testing for tainted toys from China as well as a Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq to frame her character. The narrative of change comes through, she's confident, wraps in the story about her fire and the meaning of community, but shows strength, compassion, and resolve.
In the intro ad in 2006, Darcy doesn't even talk until the end, when she babbles incoherently about the American dream slipping away The spot emphasizes everyone but her; her military vet husband, her military family, her public school, her son. It talks about her priorities, improving education and making health care affordable and other poll-tested bullshit. Instead of discussing Iraq, the ad mentions veteran affairs, a standard proxy avoidance mechanism. The music is sad, and she takes a generic attack line against politicians in Washington who listen to the special interests. It's awful. Thank God she not only ditched the consultants who made it for her, but took control of her campaign.
So what's the difference? A media consultant who really gets her and is willing to take risks. Dan Kully at LKK put this together, and he and Darcy have an obviously good rapport. She brought Kully on this cycle after ditching her old consultants (wow, consultants actually got fired!), and he has worked with her in a smart way using web spots since 2007, effectively elongating the cycle among activists and helping to build her substantial small dollar donor lead over Reichert. Kully's one of the few media consultants who gets the web, the visual possibilities of the medium and the ability to get gritty and lower quality than broadcast.
In contrast to 2008, Darcy set herself up well this ad; she's a sympathetic and likeable icon, running towards her accomplishments and embracing them as the rationale to choose her for Congress. There are a couple of negative narratives the right is setting up against Darcy. The first is that she's a wealthy out-of-touch liberal, and it is meant to solidify the working class voters in the south of her district for Reichert. She immunizes that attack by owning her Harvard education instead of running from it, appealing to the aspirational rather than resentful sides of the voter, and showing that she's quite secure with her success and has used it to help others. The second main attack is that she's inexperienced, which is heavily tied to her gender and youth. With her motherhood framed around solving problems with toys from China, and her authorship of a Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, she parries that attack as well.
Here is how Reichert came after her in 2006. It is one of the most offensive ads against a woman I've ever seen, but you can tell that it won't work in 2008. It's not just that voters won't think of Darcy as inexperienced any more, because they've now known her for three years, it's that Darcy is explicitly talking to women the political system has ignored. In 2006, Darcy didn't talk to women, but this time, she is. Reichert's going to have to find a different way to go after Darcy this time, or else risk looking like a pig to the swing female voters in the district. And if he does go after her gender again, Darcy is now a confident and effective enough politician to smile and shake her head at his childish behavior, instead of acting unsure about how to respond. Every woman, now that Darcy has stood up for women, will recognize the attack they have seen so many times, the sneer when they saw their less-qualified colleague promoted or dealt with some sleazy sales jerk when buying a car.
The polls in this race are misleading, because voters have only heard one side so far. Reichert has been flooding the district with franked mail since 2006, so he has been getting a tremendous and artificial boost from doing paid media under the radar. With Darcy engaging with the voters directly using her substantial cash lead, we should see some real poll movement.
If you want to put some cash to good use, throw it Darcy's way. She's got a tough race, but she's using resources effectively and efficiently, and learned a huge amount since 2006. This is how politics changes, by replacing old consultants and ways of doing business with people who know how to win as progressives working with great young female candidates like Darcy.