Can’t go wrong attacking Democrats for snatching at voters’ pocketbooks, even in a blue state. Fun stuff here, and noteworthy for how hard it strains to turn the focus of the election completely away from O’Donnell and towards Coons. Apart from the lightning-quick attribution at the end of the spot, her name is never mentioned; there’s not even an “I’m Christine O’Donnell and I approve this message” voiceover, which has become perfunctory in political ads ever since Bush started doing it in 2004. Coons wants the election to be a referendum on O’Donnell and O’Donnell wants the election to be a choice between her and Coons — a mirror image, ironically, of how the White House is treating the midterms nationally — and the only way to do that is to educate voters relentlessly about his record. If she’s smart, she won’t appear in another ad until election day. From now on, it’s all Tax Man, all the time.
Two new polls today, one from Fox News and the other from Monmouth, confirm what we already know — that Coons is ahead by somewhere between 15 and 20 points. I’m seeing chatter on Twitter this afternoon that the lead can’t be that big if Obama’s planning a trip to Delaware this Friday to campaign for him, but I think WaPo’s explanation of that is more likely: The White House is in smear mode right now, so Obama’s going to try to draw some extra attention to the tea-party “witch” in hopes of discrediting TP candidates like Sharron Angle and Joe Miller nationwide. I’m curious to see how directly he goes after her, as having the president beat up on her will only play into her narrative of being the little guy against the machine. Coons has been savvy about that thus far, not attacking her personally for the “witchcraft” nonsense, etc, but if The One’s willing to go full jackass on the Chamber of Commerce, there’s no reason to think he’ll go easy on O’D.
Exit question: Did they actually work an Antoine Dodson reference into this ad? At first I thought it must be a coincidence, but now I’m thinking maybe it was done deliberately on the assumption that all sorts of websites that never would have run the spot will post it now for the Dodson angle. (CBS and Mediaite have already bitten.) That’s a brilliant way of maximizing the ad’s viral potential, which is precisely what they need to do to get the anti-Coons campaign running full throttle. Possible soundtrack for the next ad: “Chocolate Rain”?
Update: Needless to say, tomorrow night’s debate is do or die. Which explains why tickets sold out in 10 minutes.
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