John McCain's Done It All Before

John McCain's newest spot "Guts" plays out in a very deep rut of political advertising. "Other candidates say they will [INSERT IMPORTANT ISSUE HERE] but our candidate has already done it."

I know, I know -- McCain has to turn "age" into "experience." In this particular spot he has chose to highlight his efforts against the folks at Boeing, oh well, no one in Seattle is voting for McCain anyway.

A perfectly awful spot. It looks dated, feels ponderous and is completely devoid of McCain's personality which, IMHO, is the campaign's best asset.

The kind of spot you run when either a) you don't know any better, b) you don't want to take a chance or c) well, does it really matter?

Click here for "Guts."

Delbert Hosemann Has A Funny Name

What do you do if you're a candidate with a funny name that's hard to remember?

You can either spend time trying to get people to remember it or you can jump in and make fun of it, too. Mississippi State Auditor Delbert Hosemann chose the latter by having a little old lady butcher his name for 30 seconds.

A little self-deprecation goes a long way. Click here to watch "Gilbert."

Hillary Clinton Hates George Bush, Likes Seniors

I think I'm finally figuring out the format for a Hillary Clinton spot: say something bad about George Bush in the first 5 seconds, say Hillary's plan in the next 10, talk about how Hillary's already doing in the next 10, disclaimer in the last 5.

Actually, this is a nice commercial (if a little formulaic) put together by ad guys who know what they're doing. Interesting that Hillary does not carry this message herself, does she not test well with seniors?

Check out Hillary's latest here.

Why Would Al Gore Want This Job?

Here's a spot from draftgore.com urging Al to take a drastic cut in pay to jump into the race.

Why would he want to? He's like Ed Begley in a suit. No one knows what he does but everyone listens to him. It's a great gig. Kind of like this only I didn't get a Nobel.

Here's the ad that's running on a very tiny media buy in New Hampshire. More people will probably see it here.

Click to see "Imagine."

John Edwards Says He's No Hero

Take one speech, mix with b-roll shots of the audience you want to appeal to, add stirring soundtrack (reminiscent of the song "Clocks") and -- voila! -- you have John Edwards' newest spot. Pretty traditional political fare, this time with Edwards putting a stake in the ground for healthcare.

Odd to see this many people shots without any of them being African-Americans.

Love him or hate him, the man can give a speech.

Check out "Heroes" here.

Mitt Romney Lives In A Funhouse

Okay, I've been pretty hard on the Romney campaign's spots. Mostly because their spots have been, on the good days, dull.

But here's a spot called "Our Home" featuring the candidate's wife, Ann. This is the only Romney spot I've seen that made me feel like Mitt was an actual carbon-based humanoid life form.

And how do you not like a spot with a shot of kid sliding down a flight of stairs on a mattress? I may go to the Romney house for vacation.

Click here to see "Our House."

John McCain Gets A Little Trippy

Short of yelling "do not take the brown acid," John McCain takes his message of hope to the Woodstock generation. In this hastily assembled response to Hillary Clinton's request for $1 million to fund a Woodstock museum , McCain casts himself as a long-term cost-cutter. How long term? Check out the Colonnade shot of McCain with Ronald Reagan.

Kudos to campaign for responding on the air so quickly, but the production is just one step above iMovie.

Click here to check out "Woodstock."

Bobby Jindal Clowns Around

The Jindal camp goes on the attack. This time with clowns. (No doubt their polling shows that a majority of people are frightened by clowns.) Actually, it's a nice spot harpooning the easy -- and deserving -- targets of Baton Rouge politicians.



Meanwhile the Democrats in Louisiana are pummeling Jindal on everything they can think of. I'll save that for another post. Who says this is going to be an off year?

Ernie Fletcher Is On A Mission

Does Ernie Fletcher have a chance to keep the Kentucky Governorship? Six months ago, no way. Now, maybe so. Looks like he's taking a single issue approach to the race with a "No Casinos" theme. Fred Davis delivers spot number one and it's very good. Except for closing graphics. Can someone please send a designer over to Strategic Perception?

Click here for Ernie Fletcher's First Ad.

MoveOn.org: What happened to Oliver Stone?

Okay, so you want to do a hard-hitting commercial and sign a big name director to shoot it. No miss, right?

Hold on.

This latest effort from MoveOn's VoteVets campaign doesn't look like Oliver Stone's work at all. The performance is stilted and canned and the editing looks like it was made while doing the iMovie tutorial.

My guess? Oliver Stone never even saw the rough cut. Embarrassing.

Max Wells Likes His Wrinkles

What do you do if you have an age "issue?" If your Max Wells, candidate for Dallas mayor, you embrace it.

A simple idea that does a nice job of changing the equation from wrinkles = old into wrinkles = experience.

See it here.

Jonathan Miller and Dixon/Davis Go Positively Negative

Or is it the other way around? We're almost amazed at Dixon/Davis' inability to do positive advertising. They love going negative so much that even their bio pieces look negative.

C'mon guys, take a walk in the woods, do a little aromatherapy, but lighten up a little.

Check out "Talk."

Republican Jewish Coalition Isn't Too Thrilled With Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi, otherwise known as the greatest gift the Republican party could possibly imagine, went to Syria. The first to step up and shoot the fish in the barrel is the Republican Jewish Coalition with this ad.

Nothing to write home about, but a good look at where we're going. Extra points for working in the word "thug."

See "Dangerous" here.

Elect Susie for President

It's always interesting when non-political ad agencies like Fallon Worldwide jump into the political world. Here's a really nice campaign that's encourage lawmakers to push for health insurance for children. The entire concept is couched in a mythical 10-year-old girl running for president. The experience is carried over really well onto the website.

Check it all out here.

Mitt Romney Is Ready to Veto Some Stuff

This new spot for Romney from National Media is a bazillion times better than the first one. Here we actually get to hear him speak with a little passion and discover that, wait a minute, the guy has a sense of humor.

But what's up with the giant red star behind his head? Didn't anyone check this camera angle before the event started? The editor tried to hide it as much as possible, but you can only do so much. They need to get better fast.

See "I Like Vetoes" here.

Americans United Sure Knows How To Waste Money

Americans United has gone up with an ad opposing Mitch McConnell's support of the Iraq war. And they're running it in Kentucky. A place that a) has a LOT of veterans and b) really likes Mitch McConnell. Or could this just be a clever ploy to get coverage on the national news channels?

Those Americans United are a very cagey bunch.

The ad is actually pretty well done. For a total waste of money. See for yourself here.

I'm Taking Bruce Lunsford To Vegas

The Lunsford/Stumbo ticket for Kentucky Governor/Lt. Governor is off and running. The opening spot is a nice, feel-good bio piece from Adelstein-Liston which, in a stunning bit of political advertising, actually includes the Lt. Governor in a meaningful way.

Reasonably well done, pretty straight ahead stuff. Watch "Two Leaders" here.

One interesting note: their website shows both candidates' NCAA March Madness picks. I don't know why that's on their website, but Lunsford's got a pretty good bracket going. Check it out by clicking here.

Ernie Fletcher Can Take A Lot of Abuse

The Kentucky governor's race is off and running. Strategic Perceptions launches Ernie with a very nice looking and well written ad called "Stride."

Nice composition, sharp photography. In fact, the only thing we didn't like was the tacky Kentucky Wins! logo jammed in the bottom of the corner. I'm guessing that was the client's idea.

Check it out here.

Louisiana Republican Party Ready For A Fight

It's one thing for a state political party to run an attack ad, but to run one against someone who isn't even in the race yet?

That's what the LA GOP is doing against potential D candidate Breaux. Apparently the sitting governor (Blanco) is in such bad shape that the Democrat party may have to attack her so she doesn't feel left out.

Check out the Google Earth inspired "Above the Law" here.

Hillary Clinton Mashup: Copyright Infringement Is Fun!

Here's a link to the controversial "1984" spot featuring Hillary Clinton. For those of you who do not spend all day watching ad reels like I do, this is the famous Apple Computer "1984" spot that introduced the Macintosh. Someone very cleverly replaced the Big Brother images with Hillary Clinton images.

The message is a little blind, but I think the creator definitely made the point. I wonder how Apple feels about this. I'm thinking they are pretty pissed. If they can find this guy they'll sue the bejeesus out of him.

See for yourself.