While it’s way too late now, I’ve been wanting to publish a list of the best mid-term Democratic campaign ads. Here’s the thing, though: It’s a very, very short list. And, frankly, the GOP’s ads are even worse. The ad agencies hired by both parties have mostly cranked out unremarkable pablum that I stopped watching well before the ads ended. There have been very few ads that were memorable or informative or on-point … and even fewer that were all three.
I’m thus reduced to listing the four arenas where I would have focused my attention if had been running the Democratic campaigns – while providing some representative ads that I think hit the mark. Some are (or easily could have been) generic ads that could have been run for multiple campaigns in different markets.
Respect for Democracy
I don’t know how to make people understand just how important it is that all candidates across the political spectrum respect election results. I’m fine with recounts. I’m fine with legal action in the courts, if appropriate. However, there’s a point where candidates have to accept a loss. The fact that the vast majority of Republican candidates this cycle are still 2020 election-deniers should scare the shit out of everyone. While I realize that civics lessons don’t often make for great campaign ads, certainly some brilliant Mad Man or Woman can crack that code. In the meantime, the best I have is this ad from the Republican Accountability Project:
Character
While positive ads about a given Democratic candidate are nice, Democrats should have stopped being nice long ago. I’ve yet to see truly hard-hitting ads questioning the insanely flawed characters of many of their opponents. For example, where were the ads targeting Hershel Walker’s blatant hypocrisy with respect to women’s rights, his lack of any relevant experience, or his outright stupidity? Where were the ads targeting Mehmet Oz’s carpetbagger status, his dog-killing experiments, and the snake-oil salesman career that made him rich?
Sure, I saw some ads that attempted to address some of these topics. They just weren’t very good. By necessity, these type of ads need to specific to a campaign and their tone can be quite tough to get right. Democrats can’t come off as assholes, but they do need to get their points across. For these types of ads, a little humor goes a long way and often helps to give the ad a free online audience bump.
Here’s a decent ad for Catherine Cortez Masto (and against Adam Laxalt) which was also a pretty good use of a celebrity endorsement:
The Economy
Democrats shouldn’t have just run away from this topic and needed to talk more about their wins. Unemployment is at record lows. Democrats passed a massive infrastructure bill. They implemented a tax credit that took child poverty to historic lows. They made good on their promise to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
Republicans have been quite vague about their economic plans but the plans they have touted are massively unpopular. They voted against capping the price of insulin and they’ve floated numerous plans to cut and/or privatize Medicare and Social Security.
Of course, Democrats need to acknowledge rising costs. However, they also need to remind voters that pure corporate greed and out-of-control profiteering is a major factor with respect to inflation. Does anyone truly believe that Republicans are going to reign in big business? Please. Here’s an example of a decent economic ad:
Women’s Rights
This issue needed to be correctly framed and the Democratic MAGA (Mothers Against Greg Abbott) did a pretty good job in Texas of producing ads that stressed massive government overreach with respect to women’s rights. Here are two examples: