Kennedy's TV ad

Mark Kennedy's new ad is viewable on his website.

Before looking you go look at it let me make a few comments about Kennedy and his ads of the past.

Some of the most powerful ads are the ones that make the candidate look like a real person. Given the batch of yokels in St Paul and Washington an ad that makes a candidate even LOOK like a real person is a trick.

Two of my three favorite television ads are of this nature. One was from Norm Coleman in 2002. I don't remember much about it specifically beyond a scene where he was sitting on the porch steps in front of a white house and a scene of a field of wheat blowing in a breeze.

The one that was not about the candidate as a person but about "issues" was Kennedy in 2002. He was walking across the screen from left to right. The scenes behind him were made to look like he was in them (people reacting to him, etc) though the scenes panned from right to left faster than he was walking across the screen. The result was it seemed he was walking across the screen from scene to scene while still being a part of the scenes that were flashing by.

The third was just added to my list. The whole "meet me, I'm a real person" thing usually comes off as phoney if the candidate actually is a real person. Despite my misgivings of personal direct interactions with Mark Kennedy over the past several years I can look at his ads objectively. The ad does feel genuine, has humor that does not seemed terribly forced and is a great example of the campaign "feel good" ad.

Good job to the production crew on that.