Im Harry Republican and to bring you the facts I approve of this ad. Just the facts.
By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Republican negative ad writers always delight in describing the Stimulus Package as bloated wasteful government-growing & useless. But there is no need this year to load up negative ads with adjectives painting your opponents as evil big spenders in the thrall of the D.C. establishment.
The simple facts of your Deocrat opponents voting records are enough to defeat them.
The adjectives get in the way. The polling weve done indicates that the simple words stimulus package convey all that and more.
Just the facts maam.
There is no need to call Obamas health care legislation a government attempt to take over our health care or a bill to slash medical care for the elderly or an attempt to force rationing of care. The simple word Obamacare conveys the same meanings.
Why describe cap and trade as job killing or driving jobs overseas when the words cap and trade say these same things to voters?
Ads are effective for the response they elicit from the viewers. The more they catalyze a response inside the mind of the voter the more effective they are. Ads that are heavy on adjectives and have the look and feel of an attack ad run into credibility problems with the average voter. One rebels against a heavy handed attack and you find yourself fighting against the ad even if you basically believe it to be true.
The more even handed and credible the ad is the more it will be believed.
It is the beauty of the 2010 election year that ads that are prosaic simple straightforward and factual will do much better than those which are loaded up with negative adjectives and blood-dripping depictions of big spenders who believe in big government.
A simple ad along these lines will be far more effective for a Republican challenger to a Democratic incumbent than any elaborately conceived negative commercial:
Do you support the $850 billion stimulus package Obama passed last year? Joe Democrat voted yes. Harry Republican says no.
The TARP bailout? Democrat voted in favor. Republican is opposed.
Obamacare? Joe Democrat supported it. Harry Republican would have voted no.
Cap and Trade? Democrat yes again. Republican no.
Vote for the one that agrees with you.
If you have to run a disclaimer featuring the candidate just end the ad up with Im Harry Republican and I approve of this ad to bring you the facts. Just the facts.
The whole idea is to make the ad totally credible - an ad where your opponent should be willing to pay for half of it. Like an ad sponsored by the League of American Voters or some such group.
This approach may rob your media advisor of his creativity and give your staff less satisfaction than a blood drenched negative but it will work far better.
Tony Schwartz my mentor once told me that he would read me two identical ads that would elicit totally different reactions:
Ad One: You can read the truth about the pornography industry in a three part series in the New York Times
Ad Two: You can read the truth about the pornography industry in a three part series in the National Enquirer.
Of course these are totally different ads but the difference is in the mind of the listener. The impartial just the facts approach to negative advertising passes the internal screens voters have on ad credibility and does its work inside the voters mind.
And the adjectives they would use to describe Obamas programs to themselves are far far more devastating than the ones you ad person can conceive.
Dick Morris a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton is the author of Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race.
Do you support the $850 billion stimulus package Obama passed last year? Joe Democrat voted yes. Harry Republican says no.
The TARP bailout? Democrat voted in favor. Republican is opposed.
Obamacare? Joe Democrat supported it. Harry Republican would have voted no.
Cap and Trade? Democrat yes again. Republican no.
Vote for the one that agrees with you.
If you have to run a disclaimer featuring the candidate just end the ad up with Im Harry Republican and I approve of this ad to bring you the facts. Just the facts.
The whole idea is to make the ad totally credible - an ad where your opponent should be willing to pay for half of it. Like an ad sponsored by the League of American Voters or some such group.
This approach may rob your media advisor of his creativity and give your staff less satisfaction than a blood drenched negative but it will work far better.
Tony Schwartz my mentor once told me that he would read me two identical ads that would elicit totally different reactions:
Ad One: You can read the truth about the pornography industry in a three part series in the New York Times
Ad Two: You can read the truth about the pornography industry in a three part series in the National Enquirer.
Of course these are totally different ads but the difference is in the mind of the listener. The impartial just the facts approach to negative advertising passes the internal screens voters have on ad credibility and does its work inside the voters mind.
And the adjectives they would use to describe Obamas programs to themselves are far far more devastating than the ones you ad person can conceive.
Dick Morris a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton is the author of Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race.
