Amid bad campaign ads, a smashing alternative
As someone who, for years, was paid to pay attention to, analyze and frequently dispute political campaign ads, I realize what a dreary, mind-numbing world that is.
There are the negative ads with their grim, minor-key background music; images of people suffering; grainy, unflattering photos of the opponent that can make even the most physically attractive candidates look like bloodthirsty ghouls; and not-always-relevant references to Nancy Pelosi, the Koch brothers and other supposed supervillains. (“It’s not negative, just comparative,” dozens of campaign flacks have told me through the years, assumedly with a straight face, about such putrid TV spots.)
And, as I’ve said many times before, the only thing worse than the negative ads are the positive ads, which try to turn even the most jaded politicos into young Abe Lincoln, rising from humble beginnings, believing in faith, flag and the promise of tomorrow, and having an unquenchable desire to help regular folks like you (usually showing the candidate conversing with ranchers, construction workers, oil field workers and, of course, the children.
Between the two types, I’ll take the nightmarish 30-second visions with the stern narrator warning that the opponent is a mindless slave of George Soros and wants to tax you until your gums bleed. But last week, there was a nice reminder that political spots don’t always have to follow the same cornball scripts.
I’m referring, of course, to the video that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham unleashed during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.
It’s an ad made for her gubernatorial campaign last year. In it, we see Lujan Grisham, running in high heels and literally smashing through (fake) walls, as construction workers and school kids look on.
“New Mexico is 49th for employment and 50th for schools,” Lujan Grisham says at the outset of the spot. “We gotta bust through some walls to make changes.”
Finally, in the classroom, she says, “And here’s what I think about Trump’s wall,” right before she runs through a wall with a color photo of the 45th president of these United States.
As in practically anything in this troubled era, response to the ad varied, usually depending on the political persuasion of the viewer.
“i’d like to see you try to bust thru Trump’s steel/reinforced concrete wall like that. you’ll find out real fast how effective walls can be,” tweeted a Pennsylvania man with the Twitter handle of “The Sword and the Hammer.” God bless America! My only question is why Lujan Grisham didn’t release this widely during the election, which she won by a landslide. Perhaps some cautious campaign aides thought that by showing the candidate obviously having fun, people wouldn’t take her seriously.
When she first announced her candidacy back in late 2016, Lujan Grisham released a very serious, very respectable, very dignified video featuring her talking about why she was leaving an increasingly safe seat in Congress to run for governor. I couldn’t resist. I did a blog post with that video, as well as an old campaign spot from a few years before that featured Lujan Grisham on inline skates, traversing streets in her district.
(My colleague, Daniel J. Chacón, reported last week that both the wall smashing ad and the skating ad were done by a Washington, D.C., firm called Putnam Partners, which also was responsible for some humorous spots for Bill Richardson that received national notice.)
A friend, who at the time was working for the congresswoman, tweeted at me several links to old, serious, respectable and dignified campaign ads in which Lujan Grisham was not skating. He apparently didn’t want me to think Lujan Grisham was all skates and no cattle — or however you want to twist that metaphor.
Hopefully, I’m not alone in thinking that having a little fun on camera doesn’t diminish a candidate. There’s nothing wrong in showing a candidate’s lighter side and sense of humor. And both the wall-smashing ad and the skating ad send an unspoken positive message — Lujan Grisham is energetic.
So here’s hoping more New Mexico candidates of all stripes turn this into a trend and smash the walls of horrible, depressing, generic campaign ads.