Donald Trump has released his first official television ad, airing in both Iowa and New Hampshire. It repeats the same themes he’s been talking about on the campaign trail: securing the border, destroying ISIS, and clamping down on Muslim immigration to the United States until we can “figure out what’s going on.”
My first thought is: I wonder if Trump is diminished by airing a political ad and essentially becoming just another candidate on the airwaves. The candidate himself said it best when he noted that no political ad can capture the energy at one of his rallies.
Next, are television ads even effective anymore? At least when it comes to this primary, there’s evidence that they aren’t. Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise PAC has spent millions of dollars, saturating the early states with ads to no discernible effect. My guess is that one political observer’s comparison of Jeb Bush to dog food is an accurate one: you can give a brand of dog food the most expensive and swanky marketing campaign ever, but if the dogs don’t like it, it’s all for naught. Simply put, voters aren’t interested in what Jeb’s selling. So maybe TV ads can still work.
And if the polls are correct, then voters are interested in what Trump’s selling. He’s cornered the market on Republicans who want a strong leader who will do what’s necessary to put the country back on the right track, political correctness be damned. Those who want the most conservative guy possible are backing Cruz. The other candidates are competing for scraps – the voters who care primarily about electability or who have other concerns.
The release of this ad ought to dispel the (preposterous) assumptions of some of the other campaigns that Trump is not serious about winning. He wants to win the primary, and he’s willing to pay out of his own pocket to give himself the best chance of doing so. The other candidates and the entire GOP establishment are really banking on the hope that Trump’s ground game is awful and that the thousands of people attending his rallies will prove to be flakes. In other words, they’re hoping that even though Trump is serious, his supporters are not. Less than a month from the Iowa caucus, that’s not a good place to be.
John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.
Trump is spending about $2 million a week in Iowa, which is not sufficient to eek out a win in the conservative state. The billionaire is too cheap, or too weak, to spend what it takes to win in Iowa. I agree with Thom’s prediction that he will be a sore loser after Iowa, resulting in sinking popularity.
The real story here is that Trump’s first ad is not the game-changing promo that he heralded it would be. It was an ad totally focused on the negative, and on generating more fear than anything else. That’s what Trump is all about, i.e., instilling fear, and inciting xenophobic responses, and inter-class mistrust. Nothing upbeat, hopeful, noble, or altruistic.
And, for the record, a very misleading image was shown in that ad (i.e., the one of people streaming across what appears to be a political border of some kind. Dbunkers were quick to note that it was a shot taken in Morocco. and not along any US border).
So, the only thing remarkable about the Trump ad is that it was the usual political propaganda (“information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view”), and that it offered nothing good, different, exciting, or principled to voters.
That’s the real story, but, of course, you missed it.