New Campaign Ads Straddle the Folksy/Hokey Divide

Senators Barack Obama and Chris Dodd both announced new ads in Iowa today. Dodd’s is a TV ad, while Obama’s is a radio ad.

Obama’s ad (listen here) features Duffy Lyon, the so-called “Butter Cow Lady,” and it could be the best ad of the campaign so far. Yeah, it’s folksy. Maybe it’s even hokey, as some friends who I sent it to believe. But it’s perfect for community radio stations, where this kind of ad is typical from local advertisers. (More formal presidential campaign ads on these sorts of stations usually sound out of place.)

Farmers will hear Obama’s ad while they are operating their farm equipment, as the harvest season draws to a close; elderly men will hear it during coverage of the weekend’s high school sporting events; and women will hear it at the hairdresser. It’s the perfect way to introduce the campaign to small town radio audiences without accosting them or getting too serious. It demonstrates Obama’s credibility not merely as a candidate who might help rural communities, but as someone who seems to understand rural culture.

Dodd’s ad is perhaps a little more questionable. It would have fit well as a way to introduce himself in June (a very similar kind of ad worked well for Gov. Bill RIchardson at that point in the campaign), but at this point TV ads have gotten a bit more issue-specific. It is true that Dodd still needs to introduce himself to Iowa voters, since he has not yet caught on; but the time for that may have passed.

I suspect that the concept for the Dodd ad had actually been in the can for some time. It is similar in message to the video his campaign produced for the YouTube debate in July in that it focuses on Dodd’s — and, by implication, former Sen. John Edwards’s — hair. Because the responses elicited by that video were not entirely positive, the Dodd campaign may have decided to hold off on this next hair-themed ad until now. Why they thought it would be better now than it would have been in July or August, I’m not sure, because the only thing that has changed is that Edwards’s $400 haircut is no longer in the news. (When Dodd asks how much a haircut at the small-town barber shop in Winterset costs at the end of the ad, it is fairly clear that he’s taking a dig at Edwards.)

Yeah, the Dodd ad is kind of cute. It’s folksy and hokey. And it highlights facts Dodd wants voters to know: his IAFF endorsement, his responsibility for the Family and Medical Leave Act, his time in the Peace Corps and the military, etc. But its message is biographical, and now is not the time for that. Dodd would be better served by highlighting his strong leadership in opposing retroactive immunity for telecom companies than by reminding voters of the color of his hair. The Dodd ad is below: