Last updated on 2015.03.19
GOP U.S. Senate candidate Marion Michael Rounds made a flop of a campaign ad. Stung by criticism in the national press and from opponent Larry Rhoden for filling his ad with non-South Dakotan stock photography, Rounds showed more un-frontrunnerly weakness by pulling the ad.
Team Rounds's predictable response has been to say that (a) the ad doesn't really matter and (b) all the other campaigns use "resources" (campaign staff, t-shirts, bumper stickers) from other states. Both responses spectacularly miss the point.
In one way, the Rounds stock-photo ad doesn't matter: there are much bigger issues on which to attack Mike Rounds. Candidate Stace Nelson gets this: he calls the ad fracas a distraction from Rounds's beholdenness to East Coast special interests, his handprints on the GOED/EB-5 scandal, his structural deficit, and how those issues make Rounds ill-suited to fight corruption and fiscal frippery in Washington. Stupid advertising choices are only gravy on the really big turkey of Rounds's failed policies and principles.
But gravy (right, Grudz?) and advertising still matter, and they matter in ways that differ from the other resources candidates assemble for their campaigns. Comparing stock photos in an ad to staffers and supplies falls apart when we consider primary functions. The main reason a candidate hires staff is to get work done. Hiring a South Dakotan over a Minnesotan or Virginian has some message-sending value, but it doesn't trump comparing resumes and picking the person who can raise more money, plot better strategy, and write better ads (not to mention hide your shady finances from South Dakota observers). A South Dakota candidate can score some brownie points by buying t-shirts and car magnets locally, but concerns about budget, timeframe, and quality can override that ancillary message concern.
An ad is all message. In Rounds's stock-photo ad, the message was all metaphor. There was no new policy pronouncement or exposition on details of the GOP platform. The ad was all symbolism: Mike Rounds's soothing smile and soothing buzz-buzz-buzz over soothing images. The audio-visual text was a symbolic waving of Mike Rounds's family photos meant to make us feel warm and fuzzy and want him as part of our family.
But Mike Rounds's family photos didn't show his South Dakota family. They didn't show his kids and grandkids. They didn't show his friends and neighbors. They didn't show the people and places of our extended South Dakota family (mitakuye oyasin!) Rounds's chosen symbols fairly screamed, "I don't need to acknowledge you! I just need you to acknowledge me!"
Rounds created a text to symbolize himself as a good South Dakotan. The symbols he chose, on thoughtful analysis, show him to be inauthentic and inattentive to the South Dakotans he would serve. And for a campaign that's been raising money and taking pictures since 2012, the inability to assemble seven pretty photos of South Dakotans shows gross laziness. If we're grading papers, Rounds's text gets an F, a fact Rounds acknowledges by withdrawing his text in embarrassment.
The pedigree of Rounds stock photos is integral to the failure of his ad in a way that the pedigree of Rhoden's staff or Nelson's swag cannot be. Rhoden's staff and Nelson's swag are at least working. Rounds has poured money into a high-priced team that can't perform basic functions effectively. Gee, that sounds a lot like how Rounds ran South Dakota for eight years: lots of money thrown at failed projects.
See? Symbolism matters.
Did Mike "Gag Law" Rounds see the ad before it aired? Ever been around a statewide campaign?
Campaign teams -- not just the media consultant -- work hours and hours and hours on scripts, edits, scene choices, sound, lighting, hair, B rolls, clothing, and extras. Many hours. When the first cut of an ad is available, hours are expended by top staff and then lower ranking staff and the candidate and the candidate's family to view it. They send back edit ideas and get the next cut and spend hours watching every scene, every nuance and every reaction. Prior to creating an add, the campaign spends tens of thousands on issue/personality polling and focus groups so the first ad hits the ground running.
This ad fell flat on its face. Cory, you've done a good job telling why this matters.
Chances are it will be forgotten in a couple weeks, unless somebody has a copy which can be posted on blogs to remind folks of just how phony and shallow Rounds and his message to South Dakota are.
Rounds and his campaign don't know South Dakotans. They don't care about South Dakotans. They spent eight years filling their pockets and culturing secret deals. As a state senator, Rounds gave our state the gag law to shut down State Treasurer Dick Butler from blowing the whistle on rip-offs which were protected in our State Capitol.
As you say, Cory, this ad fiasco should not distract the public's and the press' attention from the Rounds years in office feasting on state government and leaving behind a massive debt. Not even a slick insurance salesman should be able to get away with that.
Cheers to Rhoden for calling out Rounds on this business. Hope and a prayer that Weiland's SD tour contrasts the GOP phoniness to the extent that it resonates the cacophony of GOP hypocrisy to a perceptible level. Maybe the public will pick up the echo?
Unfortunately, I very much doubt this ad flop will hurt Rounds in any meaningful way. The only people that care about this nonsense are the same people that will march lock-step to the ballot box and vote "R", whatever the candidate.
Can you imagine if Daschle had committed this sin?
http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/valhalla-to-some-off-limits-to-most/article_cbb00970-ab46-11df-a64a-001cc4c002e0.html
So much for "WE THE PEOPLE
This is the real Mike Rounds.
http://greatplainsvoices.com/index.php?topic=8547.15;wap2
I guess it just wasn't Mikes kind of place
This is the real Mike Rounds
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/14/1255601/-South-Dakota-s-Corrupt-EB-5-Visa-Program-Investigated
Corruption, collusion, and a state funded scam
Wake up Weiland
Wake up democrats
Wake the hell up South Dakota
The Blindman
"South Dakota family (mituyake oyasin!)"
Holy catfish and walleye, Cory, you've got to be kidding. Even our deceased ex-governor Bill never denigrated our Native American brothers and Sisters the way the M M Rounds did. I still cannot get over his sending the highway patrol to just above Marty to protect the CAFO hog farmers from Hull Iowa against our fellow South Dakota neighbors at Marty. Just picture 31 highway patrol with raised rifles in your or any hometown or area of SD, protecting out of staters. Oh well he was fine with the Canadiens running their pipeline across two aquifers through a couple of watersheds and between several lakes, so why not an out of stater.
"The symbols he chose, on thoughtful analysis, show him to be inauthentic and inattentive to the South Dakotans he would serve."
To my mind, one of his first things to do as a candidate was to travel to Israel to be interviewed by Benjamin Netanyahu and Shimon Peres as well as the Israeli Knesset, spending, if I recall correctly, 6 days there, rather than traveling the State meeting with fellow South Dakotans. To me he showed who would be his most important contributors, the Israeli lobby not South Dakotans, so guess who he will represent.