Dear Obama Campaign,
I am really pulling for you guys. I mean really pulling. I volunteer when I can and my wife and I have already given you about double the money that we originally budgeted. I am praying every minute of every day that you come out on top in November.
So, we're friends, right? More than that, I am an investor in your campaign. I think this entitles me to be honest with you, doesn't it. Here it goes . . .
Senator Obama's speech at the DNC? Brilliant.
Senator Obama's stump speeches? Inspiring.
But your TV ads SUCK.
Maybe I should not use that word. How about these: awful, terrible, incomprehensibly useless. Better?
Now, calm down. I know what you are thinking. Here is another one of these paranoid liberals saying we are weak and that we have already lost and that we have to attack, attack, attack. Well, yes and no. I'm all about going on the offensive, but my problem is less with how much of it you are doing and more with how you are doing it.
This is the campaign of change -- at least I think it is, it's been a while since I have really heard that message hit by someone other than John McCain. If this is the campaign of change, why are you running the same old, tired, ridiculous attack ads with the stupid horror movie voice over and pithy jabs?
These ads work if you are willing to say something extreme in them. "Obama wants to teach his 6-year-old daughter sex education? Wow, he is really wacky." This does not work the same way if you want to, you know, stay even close to the truth. "McCain does not use e-mail? Oh, huh, I better go walk the dog." See the difference?
Am I saying don't attack? No, of course not, but it is time to think outside the box rather than throwing my money away on ad after ad right out of the campaign media consultant handbook.
Allow me to suggest a two prong ad strategy.
First, the positive. Yes, you heard me right. It is what you do best anyway, so run with it. You did it during the Olympics, but you wasted your most valuable asset -- the candidate. People
want to want to vote for Obama, so put him up front. Have him speak directly into the camera about change and his vision for the future. Use clips from the Convention and, yes, even Berlin. "Change we can believe in" is a great slogan, so use it well.
Second, the negative, but not the traditional "McCain eats babies" garbage. Not the voice over of doom. Not telling the people why John McCain is bad. Instead, let John McCain tell the people why John McCain is bad. Maybe set it up quickly with a bit of commentary, but they show the old McCain and candidate McCain, back to back, in their own words. Let them tell the people how candidate McCain has tried to dance his way around old positions, and on many occasions flat out changed them. Maybe even show candidate McCain perversely lying about Obama wanting to teach sex ed to six-year-olds and then put a live human being on the screen saying into the camera "I was there and took part in the vote and McCain's characterization of it is a lie." (That's right, I said LIE.) Then, you tie it back -- "Same old politics. John McCain, more of the same." Something like that. Then you hit it over and over and over and over. And over. Every new ad has new footage of McCain putting his own foot in his own mouth. "Same old politics. John McCain, more of the same."
I don't have a degree in communications. I have not spent my entire life working on campaigns. I just have over a decade of watching Republicans beat Democrats with lies and garbage. Do you need to attack? Yes, but you need to do it smartly on your own terms and with issues. Don't let them drag a big campaign down to small crap like McCain does not use e-mail. Keep the big campaign about big issues. Eventually, it will get you a majority, if you hit it over and over and over and over.
And over.
My two cents. Thank you. You are heroes.
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