Kristi Noem's first 2012 TV ad is so bad that Pat Powers posts it without comment:
22 seconds of generic Republican National Committee video-boilerplate, followed by four seconds of old Kristi-on-her-horse footage and a tacked-on photo. Recall this 2010 ad from Team Noem:
Compare these stills from the two ads. First, here's the Kristi-horse shot from the 2012 ad:
Now here's a Kristi-horse shot from her 2010 ad:
Same red checked shirt. Same rolled sleeve. Same haircut. Same hoop earrings. Same horse. Same footage.
What's different? The color. The 2010 ad designers at least had the good sense to compensate for the dull, cloudy lighting and bland pasture background (what? no blue sky to bring out Kristi's eyes? no far prairie horizon to suggest vision and boundless possibilities?) by warming up the colors. The 2012 ad looks as grey and washed-out as Kristi's dour expression.
The message is just as bad. Kristi's 2010 ad at least ticked off the things she promised to do in Washington, including reducing the national debt. The 2012 ad says that debt is higher than ever, but otherwise pretends that Rep. Noem's last two years in Washington didn't exist.
We knew the GOP freshmen would run away from the incumbent label, but Kristi's level of denial is defies comprehension. She must really think it's still 2010, that she's the plucky challenger, that she bears no responsibility for the failures of her tenure in Washington.
But Team Noem can't even advertise right. This first TV ad relies entirely on memes from the RNC. It avoids listing any concrete achievements. Even given the same footage, it manages to cast its candidate in a worse light than it did in 2010.
Maybe Kristi's just in over her head. Maybe she's not having fun in Washington. Maybe she doesn't want us to send her back. But if you really want the job, Kristi, you'd better start advertising like it. Matt Varilek can show you how.
How any South Dakotan can view the failures of the Noem term in the House as anything other than boulders blasted into the American stream of consciousness without 3D glasses on is delirious.
The Romney campaign has dropped its pants and revealed the desire to return to the Bush years.
Why expect a coiffed, Boehnered inflatable to be an effective opposition member during another Obama term with a strengthened Democratic Senate and House?
I think she's put on weight since 2010!
This is a string of B rolls from her 2010 campaign. You can expect her 2012 attack ads to start after this blah intro. They'll be fresh but nasty. She's got a ton of money stockpiled and it's gotta go someplace. The clock is ticking and she's got plenty of 'xplainin' to do.
She's wrong, she won't vote to reduce the debt, she'll vote to reduce revenue. She'll vote to approve a budget based on fairy dust that says it reduces the debt and will then be rewritten by the CBO to reflect reality.
Why waste money on ads when the election is already Noem's for the taking? Silly Democrats just love to waste money. It's going to be fun watching you guys squirm when Noem woops Varilek.
Their polling datea must show she has the election in the bag. How many see Varilek's committment to economic development as an anti-thesis to opposition to special interests?
DB on the contrary, why waste money on ads when you know you're way ahead? Especially if you claim to be a fiscal conservative?
I remember when Tom Daschle "ran against" Char Harr.
He didn't spend hardly anything, because every time Harr ran an ad, Tom's poll numbers went up.
He ended up giving much the money he raised to the SD Dems who went on to pretty much take over the SD Legslature that year.
Ah, the old days. Nostalgia, nostalgia.
Kristi just voted to drone Charlie Hoffman's ranch: House.
The same 2010 Noem campaign hammered SHS as a perceived DC wonk and now defends Kristi's cookie-cutter newspeak as some profound endorsements for her party's assaults on civil liberties.
For example, maybe Noem should send Sibby and his clandestine cohorts some dough so they can fight the good fight against the new age unicorns, groucho Marxists and white Rinos.... oh, and buy more tinfoil.
Hilarious, since you belong to the cult of the Prince of Peace and have espoused the hippy look, Sibby.
I guess that's not one of Jesus' messages that you have caught onto yet, though.
"Barbara Walker, in her book The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects, suggests that Ichthys was the son of the sea goddess Atargatis and that his symbol was a representation of sexuality and fertility.
The fish has also been used to symbolize Pisces, the Zodiac sign. The Sun was in Pisces, the fish, on the Vernal Equinox shortly before the founding of Christianity and, depending on the line of demarcation, may remain so for approximately 600 more years..."
Larry, so then does Christianity need to be destroyed before we move on to the age of Aquarius?
"I think she's put on weight since 2010!"
I caught the horsey doubletake right away. She was speaking at an event a couple of months ago and I was able to catch a screenshot of her walking up to the podium. Let's just say she looks a little (alot) different 'from behind' then she did in 2010. There is a reason all the shots you see of her now days are from the waist up. Hey, I'm no slim jim myself, but it is pretty sad when you have to use shots of yourself from 2 years ago because you have become a hoochie mama.
I think the backside is just where laying around hits Kristi. If she'd have been working instead of hanging out with Ted Hustead all the time she'd be a bit thinner.
Give Rep. Noem some credit. She's trying to be green - recycling national GOP talking points along with her old campaign footage. Expect to see more recycling from Noem campaign 2012.
Was that old footage shot in Texas? Kristi was an outsourcer before the rich made outsourcing a habit.
Kristi has the look of someone that has been constipated for a week. For the good of the state and for her own health I am going to post a cure, or at least some help for her.
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The Blindman
Dave - I think you're right. That was a sore spot when the press found out she shot her informercial material in Texas. As to her derriere, it ain't two axe-handles wide, but she seems to have let herself slide in that direction. She's so gaunt in the 2010 B roll stuff. Made her look lean and mean. Maybe it was from running from her six court appearances and all the cops between White Rock to Elk Point.
Enough with the backside, fellas.
Bill's refutation to DB is solid. If Noem is Daschle '92, she doesn't need to spend anything. She certainly doesn't need to whip up websites attacking Varilek that really just boost his name recognition. She could let him hang himself and focus on boosting her party and her own stock by investing her big war chest in other GOP candidates who need her help. Has she made any donations to other campaigns? Or is she really running a vanity campaign, where it's all about her and her need to push her horsey image and attack others?
Kristi has gone completely negative, very early. And she hasn't released any internal polls when the feeling is though she is a head its closer then it should be. If she was up 10+ she'd release a poll, so she either isn't polling (which is stupid), or she doesn't have a poll that is worth releasing.
Generally the incumbents first ad says what they have done, what they have fought for, what they have worked for, admit a few short comings and then target a better future. All what that ad said was that the debt has gone up and we need someone fighting for south dakota. I could put any Democrat, or Republican on that horse and made that ad for them. Which says something for an incumbent.
Da Bearssss.
Lots of beer cans to be tossed in Reynolds Prairie tonight.
According to the Cook Political Report there is no race here. I hope they are wrong. I do not think this is Daschle '92 though. It reminds me more of Pressler '90, with Muenster coming up short but definitely stronger at the end. I hope I am wrong about this and that instead, it is McGovern '56.
I must have missed the posts where the male candidate was being chided and mocked for a perceived weight gain.
Pretty low.
Thanks for stepping up, Cory.
All in all, this is a pretty sh*tty ad by a sitting US Congresswoman, and would be even if she had no general election race. But for a contested race, this ad blows.
Content-wise, she's going with the meme that Clinton talked about. "My party is mostly responsible for this debt, but I'm blaming you because I want re-elected."
Debt breakdown:
40% - Bush's policies
20% - current economic downturn
16% - Obama's policies
12% - financial rescues started under Bush
12% - other
http://tinyurl.com/9o57gee
Yes, it's 2009 info, but it includes the stimulus.
Worse? With the game of dozens Boehner and Cantor were playing when trying to reach an agreement for raising the debt ceiling, we got slammed with higher interest rates on our debt which caused even more economic hardship for us.
Get real, Kristi.
Cook does his rankings primarily on polling data, there really hasn't been any so of course he hasn't ranked it a race yet.
Taunia, let me know if you see any other GOP candidates running that same RNC video at the front of their ads!
I don't think that old footage came from Texas. The Texas footage had much better lighting. I seem to recall she shot that other footage in Texas in the spring for primary ads. The Texans she hired for that shoot had a better sense of prairie beauty than the half-hearted point-and-shooters who created the drab 2010 footage above.
And vote for farm subsidies.
Varilek has a good shot as Noem continues to blunder around. His ads look good.
Jeff - But why does he talk like a machine?
I hadn't noticed any mechanical delivery. Noem is the one robot-reciting the talking points someone hands her.
Larry she did not? The Government is looking for out of the way landing pads used by the Venitians stealing water and sending it back up to Venus. That's why we have a drought, right? Monsanto is paying them to leave just enough for next years seed needs too I heard. But Obama sent a table, and a chair to use discussing a peace treaty......so all is really good up here........ I'm missing a few cows too --they must be meat eaters!!
I'm telling you man coffee in LongLake can get some scary stories going round the table early morning.
That South Dakota sends pathetic rubes like you to Pierre, Charlie, reminds me daily that corruption and opacity will rule the state indefinitely.
I've heard some pretty dumb straw man arguments before, but never seriously invoking alien conspiracy.
Justin, I think Sibby probably thinks New Agers and Masons are aliens. He just hasn't come right out and said it yet. LOL. (p.s. Pretty sure Mitt's from another planet.)
(Sorry Cory, something about the vibe of this post makes me want to spin off on absurd tangents. Seems I'm not the only one. Go ahead and delete me if you feel like it. It's not like I had anything smart or important to say. ;^)
"alien conspiracy"
I been seeing that stuff on the history channel and I am not saying it is true. It is the esoteric types who are giving the idea a serious thought.
Nanu-nanu, Sibby. Live long and prosper, earthling. LOL
Right Fleming, New Age pop culture also gave this an airing.
There isn't a more "esoteric" human than Steve Sibson.
I'm glad to see there is at least one conspiracy theory you don't buy into.
C'mon Larry. Pathetic rubes? Charlie and I may not always agree but pathetic he ain't or guys like us would be ruling the roost.
That being said, on topic, SD's GOP will have a whole new face in 2014 if the US still exists as we know it.
I thought he was being quite respectful by avoiding the word hillbilly.
Well, I guess I haven't noticed Noem's rearend, but it does seem to me that it is a fair discussion topic since her primary capability demonstrated in the last election and for TV in DC is her appearance. No doubt she is striking and her slim trim body impressed even women who saw her with some jealousy.
She has however demonstrated that her looks may be as fleeting as those of every other woman and those are her primary qualifications as her past two years have indicated. Noem has to come up with something new and old TV ads aren't enough.
When I saw her ad, I thought it just cried for a satire version with something like the old "Love and Marriage" lines, "Noem and the No Party go together like a horse and horse manure. Ask the local dung beetles and they will say..................." The rest or better is up to Bill Fleming, he knows how to do it and say it.
Bill and I will both come up with sayings over breakfast tomorrow, Doug.
Douglas, you come very close to making the appearance question relevant. We do not get to make her appearance a voting issue. However, if the candidate manipulates her image to manipulate voters, we may have something to talk about. But I won't have that possible discussion (based on a tenuous, hard-to-establish hypothesis) serve as an excuse for crude and lazy insults.
"however if a candidate manipulates image to manipulate voters, we may have something to talk about"
As it was with Steph and her new do to, how could these two women not manipulate lonesome lost souls with their looks Cory.
That's just politics, it's ok as long as it's our party manipulating image.
I'll vote for a pretty face over a name any day.
And that's a problem, Les. We need people to look beyond the images at the real policies and proven performance... or in Kristi's case, the utter lack thereof.
I offer no speculation that either SHS's or Noem's change of hairstyle was a calculated political maneuver. I hope that both were simply personal decisions. Hair, weight, etc. should not be voting issues.
But Les, tell me: in which ad does Noem look prettier, the 2010 ad or the 2012 remix? I contend that, if the pols are playing the image game as you suggest they inevitably do, the makers of the new ad failed miserably, making Kristi look worse through artistic incompetence.
I am dismayed enough with Rep Noems DC performance, I look away from her.
Our party has a deep young bench that could easily gain what's missing, but not the guts to do so.
Well holy buckets, Les! Help us kick Kristi out now! Make room for that deep young bench by getting showhorse Kristi out of the way!
I've considered Tim Johnson friend for years though I've not agreed with quite a bit of his last term and some before 08.
That being said, if this was Adam Healy running out of Johnsons office, I would become very vocal in welcoming Kristi back to SD.