More dueling ads in Arkansas

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Long delay from blogging, sorry and thanks for sticking around.  Travel and real work keeping me from writing, but it's time to focus now.  Bunch of health care ads coming up trying to frame the post debate debate.  I'll try to look at those tomorrow.  In the meantime, back to Arkansas:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uUaGhgvG1A]

This is a beautiful ad.  I love the shots from the house to the silhouettes, to the details, to the shots of Lincoln in the committee room, really tight work.  The shots are so evocative, but I find them fighting with the script. The script is really a meat and potatoes script about being a committee chairperson and the power that brings to Arkansas.  I've never been sure if that line of reasoning (your incumbent has a lot of power) works.  It probably polls well, but I wonder if it's too rational an argument to make. It almost feels like a bribe to me.  

In any case, while I'm not sure the imagery works with the transactional message, it's a whole lot better than this Harry Reid ad which makes a similar argument to Nevada voters:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aShDYid172c]

Compared to this Reid ad, the Lincoln ad feels like a ball of emotion.  The Reid ad is your standard political "good enough" ad, but it does nothing to connect.  Lincoln at least tries to connect by using the surrogate of the farmer to talk about her power, she tried to make it personal.  If you're going to make an ad along the lines of the powerful incumbent, the Lincoln ad is about as good as you can get.

Two ads from primary challenger Bill Halter:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_budpts3wI4]

I just don't get the coach ad.  It feels hokey and not serious enough to make Halter serious, but not really funny enough to be amusing.