When we last checked in on Godzilla and Mothra – AKA Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison – they were skirmishing with their histrionic and hysterical press releases.
Since then, they have continued sniping at each other, though few are paying attention now. That’s because both rolled out the big guns: TV spots.
Muddled Mothra
KBH was the first to escalate. In her 30-second ad, she explains that she has once again changed her mind and is not, as she had indicated before, resigning from the Senate prior to the January 4 filing deadline. Instead, she is going to stay in the Senate to “do everything (she) can to stop the government takeover of healthcare” Read more to find her ad, and more.
I could go with my one-word review: Dud. However, that would pretty much put a stop to this screed, and Glenn would be pissed at me for not only missing my deadline but also for writing too short. So I will press on with a piece-by-piece review.
The Video
In an apparent attempt to avoid making Kay look old and tired, the filtered, soft focus picture makes her look old and tired. Worse, the camera angle accentuates her weak body language. She looks so fragile that you expect somebody to wrap a shawl around her shoulders. Personally, I would have gone for an updated look and dressed her in a snuggie.
Kay doesn’t help herself much. Her face is utterly emotionless. I’ve been to open casket funerals where the guest of honor was more animated than her. Even when she shakes her head no, she ends up looking like a bobble head instead of a governor.
For Chissakes, why didn’t they get her to smile?
The Audio
The perfect match for Kay’s look is her voice: emotionless and absent of an ounce of conviction. Even when she gets to the part about risking her political future, there’s no there there. It’s a dull monotone that makes me believe that this woman doesn’t believe what she is saying.
The Message
For the most part, this spot is a process argument about her decision to stay in the Senate. It assumes that Texas Republicans are a well-informed lot who are waiting with bated breath for her every word. Clearly, Hutchison’s media maestros don’t know their audience.
Mixed in the process argument is her vow to stop health care reform. As she bobbles her head at the end, she says: “We don’t need a government takeover of health care. Not at the state level. Not at the federal level. Not ever.”
Now, I don’t need to get into how this is an evil, heartless position that will deny healthcare to millions of hard-working Americans; how she is lying through her teeth when she says healthcare reform will raise costs; how she and her Republican colleagues are cheap whores for the insurance companies; and how 20 years from now they’ll act as if they voted for reform just like they now act like they originally supported Medicare and Medicaid.
No, I don’t. But I should point out, as a certain ex-president might say, the mis-strategery of this ad.
The spot was released November 19. The very next day, Senate Democrats ran over her sorry ass on the cloture vote, ensuring that some significant form of healthcare reform will pass.
So, of course, Kay staked her candidacy on a fight she was about to lose, making her look even more ineffective. That stake may have gone through the heart of her campaign.
The Roar of Godzilla
You just knew that Rick Perry would fire back immediately. The same day, he came out with a typical Perry spot in which he bashes Washington bailouts and deficits, brags about things he didn’t do, and pops Kay a bit at the end.
I don’t have the words to review the substance of Perry’s message any further; Glenn says frontier gibberish mixed with a splatter of obscenities is out of bounds.
However, let’s talk about the purty pitchers. Take a good look at this spot. Notice something? In particular, the presence of women? I counted two, one with her back turned in some high tech fab and a still shot of Kay at the end (by the way, she looks better here than in her own ad).
In the rest of the spot, Perry is seen with:
- Several guys wearing blue collar company work clothes
- Several guys in suits at a Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting
- Several guys in hard hats
Now do you get the picture?
Now, watch Rick’s ad again, this time with the volume muted. It changes the feel of the spot somehow. I went looking for the appropriate music, and I think I found it.
Yeah, Macho Man.
We can’t let pass that Kay’s central meme — “government takeover of health care” — is a false characterization. The public option, even in its most unfettered and effective form, is not a government takeover of health care.
There is no government takeover of health care.
The goal of health care reform is to reign in the abuses of the health insurance industry and streamline the delivery of medical services.
Let’s not allow a dissembling scare tactic slip, through sheer endless repetition, into our understanding of what is being done with the legislation.
You are exactly right. Thanks, Sonny.