Monday, October 4, 2010

California Political Races, Rating the top political candidates television commercial ads.

Jerry Brown is running the best political commercials among the major political races. Mr. Brown also waited until September to start running his political commercials while Meg Whitman had already spent close to 60 million dollars in television and radio ads.

Whitman's ads are not bad, however she finally gave in and did a look into the camera and talk directly ad after Jerry Brown was able to close the gap via his "look into the camera" and speak commercials.

Cinematically, I don't like the way Whitman looks in her talk into the camera ad. Stylistically lit, once the decision was made to light her the way they did, hair and make-up needed to do a better job of matching how she looks to how she is lit. The left side of Whitman's face disappears into overexposure and it makes her look like she has half of an eyebrow and that her hair is unhealthy thin.

Years ago Jane Harman briefly ran for governor of California and in my opinion they applied way too much make-up to her face. In this instance, Whitman looks "wispy" and washed out. Irrespective of the make-up, it simply looks like the Whitman camp is scrambling to copy Brown's commercial strategy.

Sigh, the race between Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina reminds me of the final scene in Thelma and Louise. Carly and Barbara in the same car driving towards the earth's edge, slapping each other silly with enough half truths and hubris that they probably will miss the "off ramp" entirely and instead keep pounding each other until they run out of gas.

I still can't believe that Barbara Boxer blatantly stitched together three different parts of a Fiorina interview to make it sound like it was one flowing sentence, and kept that commercial on the air for at least one month, possibly two.

Even more beguiling, Fiorina didn't fight back, it was almost as if she was too dense to realize her words had been stitched. But then, to escalate the madness, Fiorina has a commercial where she actually states, "I'll go to Washington and end the arrogance".

Hey, did you all know that I am the humblest person on the planet, but you'll never hear me brag about it. (snark alert)

I'm going to Washington to end the arrogance. In case it is not clear, what type of personality profile does it take to "end the arrogance"? Perhaps the same kind that it takes to say "I'm a humble person", or, "I'm a modest person".

Shall I mention the interminably long pause of Fiorina just staring into the camera in the middle of her commercial, a pause so long that FINALLY they came up with a shorter version and cut down the "arrogance stomper's" stare.

Saddest of all is knowing that Hillary Clinton was robbed of the democratic nomination in 2008. When I compare the current crop of female California political front runners to Hillary Clinton, I think of that huge, cavernous gap from the final scene of Thelma and Louise.


If you are planning on creating or broadcasting a commercial and want an objective, outsiders point of view about your commercial, contact Alessandro Machi about his consulting services at...
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