O’Donnell: “I’m You”. Unless You’re a Witch, in Which Case, I’m Not You At All.

Christine O’Donnell has finally spent some of that $2 million she raised since her primary victory for a slick, professional campaign ad. In it, she is calm, lovely, human, and absolutely, positively not in any way, shape or form, a witch.

At least that’s the headline from about a bazillion MSM outlets this morning (really!).

Here’s the ad. Tell me if you think the headlines are fair.

I’m not at all sure that it’s fair to make that one line the headline, but it’s understandable and sure as heck was predictable. A brain-addled cockatiel could have predicted that the same MSM outlets who had been riding O’Donnell’s years-old admission that she “dabbled” in witchcraft when she was a kid would jump on this like it was a fresh pony and they were late getting the mailbag to Dodge City. It’s sure as heck not the opening line I would have picked and it sucks what should have been a subtle but strong amount of energy out of the ad and puts the focus back on an issue that she needs to move past.

Stacy McCain loves her ad and suggests that it sends an entirely different message than the one I saw.

Forget the words. Just turn off the sound and look at it. The moment she flashes that first smile, the average person likes her. They can’t help it. It’s an autonomic response.

Whether “I like her” translates into “I want her to be Senator,” I can’t say. But we’ve recently elected a president whose chief politic assets are a resonant baritone voice and a vague resemblance to the Allstate man, so I think it unwise to underestimate the superficiality of voters in the Age of Image.

Eh, I’m not so sure. I watched the ad with the sound down and what I saw in the first five seconds was extreme discomfort. Look at her head-tilt and the way she struggles to smile. Look at her eyes. It almost looks like she wants to cry, which is not at all what you want to see in a candidate’s first campaign ad. She looks too young, too unsure of herself, and not ready for serious work. I could be wrong about that. It could be that her smile will carry her to victory, that her ad reveals just how electric and lovable she is. If it works, I’ll be happy because I’m not ready to see her opponent, who loves him some Socialism, in the Senate. I’m just not seeing that right now.

I do think that O’Donnell has an amazing amount of charisma. She’s lovely and a lot smarter than her critics reckon. I also think she has a pretty good sense of humor lurking under the surface that we’ve not really gotten to see in all the videos from her incredibly earnest television appearances in the past. It could be that the discomfort I saw was due to a stilted script and a very restrictive format that doesn’t suit her well. I would rather have seen her in a more relaxed setting where her charisma would be on better display with a script that could make use of the humor she has. Instead, her people decided to go with “serious adult”. It didn’t work (which isn’t necessarily bad. It wouldn’t work for me either).

Edited to add a couple more thoughts at the end.

Other Posts of Interest:

• Okay, GOP Leaders, It’s Game Time
• Voting Isn’t for Everyone, Including Would-Be Senators
• Doug Hoffman Vindicates Me, Says He’ll Run Again

Tags: 2010 Election, Republicans, Tea Parties

Category: The Republican Minority