Pig Pen would be right at home in Massachusetts.
This morning I turned on the local news, as I usually do, to get a sense of the day’s weather and local happenings. Immediately I was met with three consecutive Martha Coakley ads, all negative. Now, in fairness to our thin-lipped friend, some of these were not the official product of the Coakley campaign. The national liberal interest groups have swooped in to Massachusetts, realizing that Marha’s downfall would create a huge national embarrassment for the Democrats. So it’s all out war.
It’s interesting to me, as a student of both marketing and politics, that we’re witnessing a race in which the candidate best described as incumbent (she hasn’t held the office but it is clearly a Democratic seat for the taking) is going negative against a challenger with a fraction of the voting base. Attack ads are usually the weapon of choice for under-funded challengers who need to gain awareness and create doubt against powerful incumbents. Personally I am not against attack ads, as this is one of the few avenues available to challengers, and history shows that incumbency is THE greatest advantage any candidate can have.
One of the funnier of the ads in the Coakley arsenal repeats over and over, like a religious chant: Scott Brown REPUBLICAN, Scott Brown REPUBLICAN, Scott Brown REPUBLICAN…clearly this is the most hideous label that could ever be applied to anyone. The ad slaps a bunch of Republican boogey men up against a photo of an uncomfortable-looking Brown: Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh in a kind of Heil Hitler pose, Bush/Cheney, of course.
Scott Brown, on the other hand, is running a clever ad that identifies Coakley’s ads as evidence of her corrupt, “business as usual” politics. He’s speaking into the camera directly, staying positive, and using her ads in a kind of clever jujitsu move. If this tactic is successful, it will be interesting to see what this does to political campaign strategy across the country. Of course this is possible because Scott Brown is an appealing person, and projects an air of sincerity. This wouldn’t work if he turned voters off. I can only assume that the reason we are NOT seeing any more ads with Coakley speaking directly into the camera is that her cold fish, schoolmarm demeanor wasn’t exactly inspiring a tidal wave of support.
The mud is going to fly, but the question is whether it will stick.
Go Scott Brown!
