All Three TV

All three of the major candidates for Omaha Mayor have their new TV ads up.
See them here (and we'll comment on them, and the money race, later this morning).

Hal Daub, "Securing Our Future"




Jim Vokal, "One Candidate"




Jim Suttle, "Nothing Subtle"



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All Three TV

Our thoughts on the ads:

Hal Daub, "Securing Our Future"
All around good piece. Hal sitting in a bright Christmas sweater in a classroom, happy guitar music, then immediately dropping "murder rates are up", could be softened. Maybe just stick with "violent crime". Also maybe less teeth in the smile at the end, but otherwise, the message was good. Daub talking about different ideas seems to resonate. People expect that he is thinking outside the box, and this spot conveys that.

Jim Vokal, "One Candidate"
We're fine with the message that Jim Vokal is putting out: He'll work to fix the pension issue. And spelling out what the early retirement figure is what people will take away from this spot. That's been the theme of the past month, and Vokal will try to ride it.

Here's our only problem with this ad. Where is Vokal looking? Is he looking off at the off-screen "interviewer"? Or is he looking at the camera? It is probably the former. But when the closeup comes at the end, its hard to tell if he is looking to his right, or looking at the camera and has a lazy eye.

Jim Suttle, "Nothing Subtle"
This is Suttle's intro piece and it's not bad. It seems to be a little light on Suttle's background, which is really his strongest selling point. Sure there's the giant "30 Years" on the bridge (more on that), but it doesn't say where his experience was, in what, or what his position was. "Building big projects"? OK, so was he putting in rivets on bridges, digging ditches, what? (We know the answer, but the public doesn't.)

OK, so then there's the rest of the imagery going on. First off, let's just say that we HATE the honky-tonk guitar. "Hey, we're Midwestern! Aren't we all Folky!" (Shuddering.)

Then there are the giant graphics, which again will be the take-away from this spot. And not necessarily what they say. Just the image alone. We were reminded of them from the opening title sequences from movies such as "North By Northwest", "Heroes" and "Panic Room". (See a shot from "Panic Room", beneath Suttle's images at right.)

While these images look really cool, you end up looking at the graphic itself, as opposed to what it says, and the message it's supposed to convey. They also fail to use Suttle's campaign logo.


But our final thought on Suttle's spot is...THE GIANT RED JACKET. Hey Jim, maybe try a sweater? A light pullover? Or, maybe just tough out the cold. It reminds us, alternately, of Ralphie's brother Randy, from "A Christmas Story" or George Costanza's giant Goretex jacket (that he kept knocking stuff over with).

Next time Jim: Fleece.

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Then we come to the money game. At the time of writing this, the NADC website doesn't seem to be updated yet, so we go from the info in the OWH story. 

The candidates' fund raising from January1 through March 3:
Daub: $173,886
Suttle: $125,951
Vokal: $91,143

Cash on Hand:
Suttle: $185,370
Daub: $183,581
Vokal: $68,544

These numbers show solid leads by Daub and Suttle over Vokal. The fund raising numbers show particularly that Daub is continuing to rake it in, and Suttle is gathering up the cash from (likely) Democrat donors. Vokal, on the other hand, is battling Daub for GOP dollars, and is clearly coming up short.

When we turn our attention to Cash on Hand, we see similar numbers, this time with Suttle and Daub neck-and-neck and Vokal way behind. Now, the Vokal camp has argued that they already spent around $60K on TV in January. At that point, they took the opportunity to begin the air war and get Vokal introduced to the public.

Then came the Omaha Police Union flyers and the flap that they caused, and Vokal continued to get publicity. Some of it bad, to be sure, but it gave voters the opportunity to learn more about him in any case.

Daub also hit the airwaves in January, arguably to counter Vokal's early ads. Daub's strategy at that point was likely insurance for the primary, but also to make sure that he was not letting Vokal get an edge on him for the general.

But Vokal has to worry about getting to the general first. So will his gamble of going on TV early -- and spending the cash -- pan out for him? Suttle is just now introducing himself to the broader public, but his camp's argument is that it's at a time when the public is finally paying attention. So is he "wasting" time with his intro ads now, or is it the prime time to be noticed?

In any case, with all three major candidates on TV, it's interesting to see what their ad spends are for this week:
Suttle: $27,000
Daub: $25,000
Vokal: $15,000

Again, Suttle has to go strong in his initial buy. Daub won't be sitting back (or probably be sitting down) from now until May. Is this buy strong enough for Vokal, considering he went up initially in January? Vokal's manager says, "When we say we're going to have the money to compete, we're going to have the money." Hmm.

Well, one way to look at it, for Vokal, is that he first needs to get to the general. If he has to spend all his cash to get there, then he can probably raise enough in the final month (arguably) to compete. While he can't go dollar for dollar with Suttle in the final four weeks, does he have to at this point?

Interesting question. Interesting four weeks to come.

Things have kicked in.