An Eye for an Eye?

There has been a flurry of advertising activity in New Hampshire. Edwards, Lieberman, Clark, Kerry, Dean and even Dennis Kucinich are running television ads. Kerry is also running a radio spot, the first by any candidate in this primary season.

Joe Lieberman is still taking strategic risks. Last week he was against discrimination. Now he is "the only one" opposing terrorism and tyranny. Thank God!

The Kerry radio ad features former Democratic Governor Jeanne Shaheen talking about the qualities that make John Kerry her favorite candidate. Gov. Shaheen promises that John Kerry has the experience that will keep us safe in a dangerous world, and will also "take on" the special interests like "big oil" (an appeal that reminded me of ads run a decade ago by Senate candidate John Durkin). Whether any Shaheen loyalists will follow her into the Kerry camp remains to be seen, but the Kerry radio ad is approaching saturation levels, and has that medium to itself. Kerry is also running a "health care" ad that is suspiciously reminiscent of a 1992 Clinton ad on the same issue.

Wesley Clark has bought time on WNDS to run "American Son," the latest campaign production by Hollywood producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, (who produced "The Man From Hope," the legendary Clinton biopic). "American Son" (promoted on one news program as "Native Son") has many of the obligatory nostalgic black & white photos of the candidate as a boy, his immigrant grandparents, his working-class Arkansas upbringing and the like. But mainly the images emphasize Wesley Clark the young West Point cadet, proud soldier, and bold general. Bloodworth-Thomason opens the film with an old subliminal trick. The dual image lasts but a second, but as a color picture of the American flag fades, a black and white photo of a teenage Wes Clark emerges--visually "wrapped" in the stars and stripes. At least it's a bit more subtle than wearing a New England Patriots jersey.

The film is narrated in part by Clark's wife and son, and in part by many former military associates, and it has been the raw material of other shorter ads. What makes the short film effective is that it tells a good story, and introduces the candidate and his personal history to the voters of the state. What raises strategic questions in my mind is the decision to run the film on WNDS, which is a small-time independent station in Derry, NH. The station has a low-budget news organization, and a quirky, but popular meteorologist, but mainly makes its bread and butter running reruns of "The Simpsons" and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch." The cost must have been considerably cheaper than time bought from WMUR, but on WNDS it will attract only the Clark true believers who go looking for it, and a few holdovers from "That 70's Show."

The Kucinich ad is short, and unusual in several respects. It's titled "Fear Ends, Hope Begins." The version in NH is slightly different than the one available on the campaign web site, but what remains the same is the almost uncomfortable close-up of the candidate, as we peer into his "Eyes that see through the lies." I have to wonder, however, whether the picture of Kucinich may have been doctored, to both lighten the color of his eyes and augment the size of his pupils (much in the way that catalog models have their pupils dilated to suggest intimate contact with the reader). I've looked closely at other pictures of the candidate, and simply don't see the same eyes that stare out from the ad. Next time Rep. Kucinich is in the area, I'll have to go look him in the eye.