This is a short diary from a Massachusetts voter to put forward two critiques of the Coakley campaign.
- The attacks on Brown aren't being delivered effectively
- Coakley desperately needs an effective connect-with-the-voter ad
I'll argue these points in turn, below.
Argument 1: Earlier this evening, my family broke our normal routine and actually turned on the local news channel - mostly to see the new campaign ads.
As I mentioned in an open thread, we almost immediately saw a series of 10 ads in about 12 minutes on one of the local network channels.
It was like watching a fireworks show or something: bam! pow! slam! boom! whack! My kids sat their gape-jawed, amazed. A bit bewildered.
Seven of the ads were from Coakley and other supporting groups. They were all attack ads. The combined effect was not what was intended.
Why were the attacks so ineffective? They were all over the place. The different groups try to paste Brown for 15 egregious short-comings across 4 ads. The viewer comes away overwhelmed, unable to remember any of them with much specificity.
Instead, a different message comes across: Holy crap there are a lot of external resources being thrown at this race!
You almost feel sorry for poor widdle Scotty.
If the coordinated campaign wants to pound the snot out of Brownie (who desperately deserves a good smackdown, the disingenuous little creep), they need to simplify the themes. Personally, I would reduce it to one theme - something like.
Republicans and special interests in Washington are pulling out all the stops to try to bring Scott Brown to Washington. Why?
So he can:
FILIBUSTER Wall Street reforms
BLOCK Obama nominees - like the TSA nominee - to try to cripple the Administration
FILIBUSTER efforts to make billionaires play their fair share of taxes
BLOCK clean energy initiatives on behalf of big oil and big coal
FILIBUSTER healthcare reform so that 30 million Americans remain uninsured
Republicans think we should sit on our hands and ignore all of our problems until 2012.
Do you?
[Background graphics: A grinning Mitch McConnell moving a stiff cut-out of Brown back and forth across the screen, using him like a door-stop, with smiling lobbyists watching the action, as a tennis match, from behind]
The three Brown ads were comprised of two attacks (the US Chamber of Commerce one was particularly nauseating), followed by a pretty effective soft ad. It features a doe-eyed Brown standing in his kitchen asking sincerely for your vote.
This all reminded me of the Gubernatorial race a few years back. In that race, Massachusetts' answer to Sarah Palin started running ads essentially implying Deval Patrick was going to break into your home and rape your children.
I remember thinking, "here we go again - hope he smacks her back!"
Instead, Patrick ran these charming ads, talking into the camera, suggesting he was above politics as usual, completely defanging his vicious half-wit opponent, and making skeptical people like me really warm to the guy.
In the current Senate race, it seems to be Brown who is making that kind of breakthrough - in response to what seems like carpet-bombing of the airwaves.
Which leads me to argument 2: I think at this point that Coakley desperately needs a soft ad where she talks to the camera, explains why she wants to be our Senator, and asks for our votes.
Right now its easy to think of Coakley as the uncharismatic hack that the Dems are throwing up there to claim the "Kennedy seat."
That is partly because Coakley's "introduction" ad was about the worst ad I've ever seen. She's in an office laying out her credentials. The camera drifts around cinema verite style, with lots of branches waving wildly, out of focus, in the far background. She starts by bragging about fighting the public utilities commission to keep rates down.
(Really? That's the opening argument? Massachusetts has a PUC?)
There's one line about holding Wall Street accountable, before she says she'll be accountable to me. There's not a lot of passion or credibility in either of these claims.
She needs to do better on the forward-looking "why me?" Bring in an acting coach. Do 25 takes if that's what's required. But unless she can balance the attacks with a complementary, charismatically delivered, somewhat passionate positive case, the blowback from the attacks - scattered to begin with - probably makes the attack onslaught a two-steps forward two-steps back exercise.
So that's my critique. Maybe I'll be able to sleep now.
Oh, and the useful thing I've done tonight? I got 10 people - friends and friends of the spouse - who probably weren't otherwise going to vote on Tuesday to promise to go to the polls for Coakley.
I have usually given apolitical friends their space.
But not this time.