Pat Hynes, former political ad writer/producer, has begun a series over at Ankle Biting Pundits deconstructing this season’s ads. First up, perennial AmSpec blog favorite John Edwards. A sample:
The script is so devoid of meaningful rhetoric or catchy cadence, one has to suspect it was written and approved by a committee of at least three advisors-the one who thinks “optimism” is the Edwards brand plus the one who thinks “toughness” is the brand plus the guy who thinks it’s Edwards’s “smarts.” How do I know? Well, because those are the words the candidate’s wife uses in the ad; she just avers it, without any interesting anecdotes or third party substantiation to support the idea that John Edwards is “optimistic,” “tough and “smart.”
Lost in all this mush is the fact that everyone who supports a presidential candidate (to say nothing of each candidate’s spouse) is certain that his or her guy or gal is the most optimistic, toughest and smartest candidate in the race. So the Edwards campaign is trying to brand itself with meaningless, undifferentiated words uncoupled with evocative images or unbiased perspective.
