Dem TV Ads: Biden Beats Hillary, Bernie Burns Everyone

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The first Democratic debate takes place tonight, and for many viewers, it will be the first time they get a chance to hear the positions of party candidates other than Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Martin O’Malley, Jim Webb, and Lincoln Chafee will do their best to use the CNN TV camera-time to try and make an impression while avoiding Donald Trump insult-humor.

But what about campaign ads? Since the 1960s, ads—first on TV, now also streaming all over the internet—have been one of the fundamental ways candidates get their messages across. Here’s a round-up — the first in a regular feature I’ll continue, covering both parties, as the election proceeds — of the most prominent ads the Democrats are deploying.

Front-runner Hillary Clinton, as the old-pro campaigner here and wide-margin frontrunner, is, as you might expect, the most pervasive ad-campaign presence. She has an array of ads that alternately tout her policy positions and her ongoing quest to present herself as a warm, jovial, good ol’ gal.

For the former, there’s “Fighter,” a video that trots through Clinton’s achievements in various governmental roles, offer what her supporters probably think is bold honesty in admitting she didn’t succeed in her 1993 push for a new health care initiative (“We lost, but you have to get up off the floor and keep fighting”) and adds the kind of 9/11 news footage that always seems opportunistic no matter which candidate is using it:

When it comes to warmth tempered by firmness, it’s the politician who’s not (yet?) running who beats Clinton. Joe Biden’s supporters have released a new draft-Joe-for-Prez ad today, “Never Quit,” that’s an effective piece of filmmaking, one that plays on Biden’s love of family and the tragedies that have bedeviled that love, while using a soundtrack of Biden’s own audio, talking decisively about his philosophy of politics. It is, so far, the ad for the rest of the Democrats to study most instructively:

Bernie Sanders, the firm number-two in the polls, makes campaign ads that match his image as a policy analyst pushing a strong populist appeal. His 8-minutes-plus opus, “Bernie Sanders: In-Depth Explanation of Income Inequality,” features a sky-blue background, classical music playing in the background, and subtitles (for the perhaps-substantial percentage of Sanders supporters who are hard of hearing?) as Sanders rails calmly, about how “real median family income is almost $5,000 less than it was in 1999” and the governmental breaks given to “the top one-tenth of 1%,“ his desire for a $15 minimum wage, pay equality for women, and “a trillion-dollar job program to repair our crumbling infrastructure.” Nirvana for fans of the PBS NewsHour:

So far Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafeee has made his biggest media splash in late-night TV, having a “soul food sit-down” with Larry Wilmore, discussing his move from Republican to Democrat (socially liberal; fiscally conservative). Unlike the other democrats, he doesn’t have his own YouTube channel to curate his campaign ads, and by far his biggest campaigning tool has been one he didn’t ask for: Conan O’Brien’s very amusing “let’s get Lincoln Chafee to 1% support in the polls” segment. It features a song from Aimee Mann and Ted Leo sung to the tune of the Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy,” extolling Chafee’s virtues, which are… what again?

Jim Webb has the lightest internet footprint in my investigations. His chief promotional spot is a less-than-no-frills, 14-minutes, Jim-looking-straight-at-the-camera recitation of his time as a Marine during the Vietnam War, his defense of the poor as people “not looking for a handout but for an honest handshake,” and his excoriation of “a system rigged in favor of one group of people [the wealthy] and against another [the needy].” It’s an impressive piece of autobiographical rhetoric weakened by its pace and length.

This past Sunday on CNN, correspondent Dana Bash interviewed former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley and, perhaps numb from the pummeling rhetoric of the Republican candidates she’s had to endure during recent debates, was startled when O’Malley made a few puckish jokes about the tough road his campaign faces. Indeed, Bash paused a beat before smiling, to make absolutely sure the poker-faced O’Malley was being light-hearted. Which goes to show you how baffled the media is in dealing with low-profile candidates like O’Malley.

His campaign spot, titled “New Leadership,” could not be more generic, commencing with amber waves of grain — the guy is literalizing "America The Beautiful” to endear himself to America — and beginning with this stirring declaration: “We would like to make an announcement: We will not stick our finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.” (Who is this “we” you speak of, O’Malley— you aren’t one of those socialists like Bernie Sanders, are you?)

The candidate concludes with one of the most awkward slogans in modern campaigning: “This is America: We don’t coronate or hand out turns; we earn it.” Good luck working that into your time in front of the CNN cameras Tuesday night, Martin.

The Democratic debate airs on CNN Tuesday night at 8:30 p.m. ET.