Erik Paulsen's congressional campaign is off to quite the stumble in the home stretch: The DCCC came out with a press release today highlighting some really bad features of Paulsen's first ad:Erik Paulsen's high-priced rebranding that is designed to hide his past as a far-right conservative is even changing the product name. In his not-ready-for-prime-time TV ad, Paulsen is featured in front of a tagline for the "ReBuBlican Party."
"Erik Paulsen's sloppy, error-filled ads show he's just not ready for prime time," said Carrie James, regional press secretary at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "He's spending so much time trying to hide his 14-year record as a far-right Republican that he doesn't even have time for spell check."
The sloppy ad included other mistakes as well. Paulsen failed to actually read the article from the Star Tribune that he cites in the commercial. The article is a semi-satirical astrological "report" describing the competing personalities in the 2005 Minnesota House. Given the Paulsen campaign's efforts to keep voters from finding out that he's a Republican, perhaps their misspelling of the party's name wasn't a mistake. B and P are, after all, nowhere near each other on a keyboard. But quoting a satirical astrology report as proof of your candidate's bipartisan bona fides? Really?
The article in question reads like this:
Suspense surrounds the opening of the 2005 legislative session. How will two evenly matched and contentiously partisan camps ever get the state's business done? Calling in psychologists or anger-management counselors doesn't seem appropriate. Imposing legal arbitration or U.N. peacekeepers is out of the question. In desperation (and in jest) we turn our eyes to the stars. Building on groundbreaking research by jokesters at the Minnesota Business Partnership, here is a horoscopic analysis of the leading Capitol characters and their relationships, drawn from the Web site astrology.com.
It may be pure bunk, but that would make it resemble a fair amount of political commentary.
...
- House Majority Leader Erik Paulsen (Taurus, the bull) vs. House Minority Leader Matt Entenza (Libra, the scales)
Real world background: These two most often square off in debate on the House floor. A financial adviser in real life, Paulsen, R-Eden Prairie, is a fiscal conservative, cool under pressure. Entenza, DFL-St. Paul, is an urban liberal, former prosecutor and ready debater. He has recently come under fire by Republicans who accuse him of exercising undue influence in contributing $600,000 to election-year efforts that they say may have helped increase his caucus by 13 members.
The stars say: Paulsen likes to "debate and argue," thinks quickly and is impatient with opposition. "You're not awfully good at being disagreed with," the star chart says.
"Not awfully good at being disagreed with," huh? Let's keep in mind here that the ad in question was funded by the NRCC. The national party organizations are allowed a relatively small amount of money - about $82,000 - to spend in direct coordination with a candidate's committee on various projects - positive advertising, field, direct mail, whatever. It looks like the NRCC spent its entire budget line item on this one ad that misspells their own party's name and tries to spin a three-year old satirical astrology report that said Paulsen is "not awfully good at being disagreed with."
If I were the head of a politically active organization looking to have an impact on this race and get DFLer Ashwin Madia elected, I might create a TV spot using this ad and its suspect quality as proof positive that not only is Erik Paulsen wrong on the issues, but that he's simply not a very serious candidate.
The script pretty much writes itself. |
