Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.
It’s not morning in California
It's an apocalyptic twilight; Barbara Boxer as the new Herbert Hoover
Adam Hanft dissects and deconstructs political advertising at Spin Season, where this originally appeared
Somebody’s been spending some time researching Google images and the bleak 1930s iconography of Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans.
Carly Fiorina’s new attack on Barbara Boxer goes for the depression jugular, with a stark series of graphic, high-contrast black-and-white shots that paint a eschatological picture of California. One photograph, depicting the liquidation of a retail store, could have been lifted from a Walker Evans retrospective at the San Francisco MOMA
Check out that opening scene. Grim-faced farmers standing on a barren field, a Grapes of Wrathian image if ever there was one. During this, the equally ominous announcer intones:
“After 28 long years of Washington partisanship, this is Barbara Boxer’s California. Trillions in reckless wasteful spending. Destroying small business. Killing jobs. Crushing hopes.”
It’s a calculated effort to move people by activating the neural circuits that exist in their brains. We all have imprints of the calamity of the Great Depression, and this spot seeks to summon them up and pin them on Boxer. As Drew Westen, who wrote “The Political Brain” puts it:
“Electoral success is about shaping and activating voters’ networks of association — bundles of thoughts, feelings, sounds, and images that become linked in the brain. Political campaigns are about activating and shaping networks through stories and images.”
Will the spot succeed? For it to work, there needs to be an existing network of imprints about Boxer that can be stimulated by the imagery we’re seeing. You need to connect with a fundamental impression to be able to amplify and harness it. I don’t think that’s the case here.
Yes, Boxer is seen as a dogmatic liberal, a big spender, and somewhat self-righteous. But the commercial pushes too far past the boundaries of Boxer’s perceptual map. Voters just won’t emotionally accept the argument that the economic wreckage they see around them is “Barbara Boxer’s California.” They recognize, on some equally deep level, that the responsibility for California’s condition is spread wide. The exaggeration doesn’t fit the crime.
By contrast, Boxer’s new spot is positively chirpy, with upbeat music and a string of her accomplishments, from veteran’s benefits to after-school centers to “fighting for new jobs.”
But the commercial is a dud. Just as Fiorina overstates Boxer’s culpability, this spot feels blithely detached from the immediate and profound crisis California is facing. What Senator couldn’t dredge up and string together a few one-off accomplishments after decades in the Senate?
Boxer’s previous spot, vilifying Fiorina for layoffs and shipping jobs offshore when she ran HP, were negative but far more effective, because they tapped into another set of neural circuits – that Fiorina is cold and calculating.
So as far as this round of spots goes, it’s Fiorina’s landscape of destruction versus Boxer’s landscape of denial. Boxer is slightly ahead in the polls, and Fiorina’s shout-out to John Steinbeck might actually widen the gap.
Adam Hanft writes and comments frequently on politics and culture for The Daily Beast, Fast Company, Huffington Post, CNN, Fox News, Politics Daily, the Barnes & Noble Review, and elsewhere. He is founder of Hanft Projects, a strategic and brand consultancy. More Adam Hanft.
Are GOP midterm expectations oversold?
The "Democratic doom" narrative is meant to demoralize, but even Scott Rasmussen believes Dems will hold the Senate
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway. Creating the universal premonition of Democratic doom is always among the most useful elements of Republican strategy. A broad feeling of foreboding demoralizes the party base, repels independent voters who prefer the winning side, and strikes emotional chords that are at least as important in electoral behavior as ideologies and issues. So Republican leaders and pundits regularly issue outlandish predictions of crushing victory, echoed across the media spectrum until they become self-fulfilling.
Continue Reading CloseJoe Conason blogs in Salon several times a week and writes a weekly column for the New York Observer. His latest book is "It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush." More Joe Conason.
Wednesday link dump: Drone doom
Our "secret" war continues, Obama antitrust failure, and Mike Castle signs on with the repealers
- Our secret drone war with Pakistan continues apace! There were three separate drone attacks today. Somewhere around two-dozen people who may or may not have been “militants” may or may not have been killed.
- Maybe the Ticketmaster fees on that Glenn Beck/Sarah Palin 9/11 death-porn festival wouldn’t be so steep if Obama’s Justice Department bothered to pursue antitrust cases.
- Dianne Feinstein may be chairing the No on 19 campaign, but her colleague Barbara Boxer apparently has aides just bring her herb to the office. (J/k, Boxer fired this poor schmuck who tried to bring marijuana to the Capitol.)
- The ICE is cracking down on undocumented restaurant workers, which means, uh, I guess that’s it for restaurants.
- Don’t you dare accuse Mike Castle of not signing on to whatever idiot teabagger nonsense the rubes are riled up about!
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.
Tea party, GOP, primed for November wins
Senate races are among the most hotly contested as Republicans attempt to change the Washington power dynamic
In the turbulent year of the tea party, Republican Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware set out to jangle no nerves as he ran for a Senate seat long held by Vice President Joseph Biden. It’s the way Republican strategists originally envisioned 2010, a roster of seasoned politicians pointing the party toward significant gains in the Senate.
“He brings our style of civility and independence to Washington and works to develop solutions,” is the soothing, even quaint message on the 71-year-old lawmaker’s campaign website, which shows him in a suit and tie, working alone at his desk. Experience “is hugely important,” he said in an interview.
Continue Reading CloseSchwarzenegger: Allow same-sex marriages to resume
In a role reversal, the California governor exhorts a judge to sign off on gay weddings
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who twice vetoed legislation that would have legalized same-sex marriage, has surprised gay rights supporters by urging a federal judge to allow gay couples to resume marrying in the state without further delay.
Lawyers for Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown, two gay couples and the city of San Francisco all filed legal motions Friday asking Chief U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker to implement his ruling striking California’s voter-approved same-sex marriage ban as unconstitutional.
Continue Reading CloseAll Carly Fiorina supporters have the exact same handwriting
Various "handwritten" anti-Boxer signs across California bear a remarkable resemblance
Here’s a little tip for all you candidates out there, from your friendly War Room blogger: If you’re going to mass-produce handwritten-looking campaign signs for (paid?) supporters to hoist all across the state, why not try having different staffers write each one, so they don’t look identical? Also, why not just print actual professional signs? No one actually has anything against professional signs.
Also, if you’re called on it, because your campaign’s Twitter account posts pictures of people with identical signs on the same day on opposite ends of the state, as Carly Fiorina’s campaign did, you should come up with a better excuse than “Office Max and Staples carry the same paper and markers.”
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene.
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