SOUTH DAKOTA STRAIGHT TALK

The Primary Election is Tuesday. There is no statewide action on the Democrat side while there are two hard fought contests for the GOP. The Dems do have some skin in the game trying to gather enough signatures bu Tuesday’s Independent filing deadline to get their Independent surrogate on the ballot to oppose John Thune in November’s U. S. Senate race.

There has been little excitement in the GOP primary campaigns. Because of the lack of excitement voters have become little engaged and consequently the outcomes seem in doubt. Because of the lack of contrasting campaigns voters will rely on campaign advertising and impressions of candidates to make their vote decision.

(What follows are solely my impressions of the campaign advertising in the two Republican Primary elections. I assume that most ads are still linked on each candidates web site or can be found on You Tube – thus they are not linked on this post)  

Overwhelmingly the best television ad is from the non contested primary election candidate, Democrat Scott Heidepriem “We’re going to put you on a diet big boy.” No Republican ad comes close. This is in contract to his fist awful ad I posted on previously.  Expect to see Heidepriem use the Republican elephant symbol used again in Heidepriem’s General election campaign as a metaphor for overspending.

Number 2 most effective ads were the branding ads by Dave Knudson. His “All fixed” and “Politicians at the spigot” effectively identified and branded Knudson as “Mr. Fix It.”

 The third ad of importance was Dennis Daugaard’s “Bio ad.” This ad first ran as a 90 second spot and debuted back in February during the Winter Olympics. They were effective in telling the Lt. Governor’s personal story. However they were too effective. The bio ad ran too long and as a consequence bars voters from absorbing later campaign messaging. When thinking about Daugaard voters don’t identify anything about him other than his personal story – compelling that it is. This is important because voters don’t care about you they care about themselves. You must communicate what is in it for the voter. From the candidate’s perspective Ads must be about what voters care about.  

In a further distant fourth place is the Blake Curd first “Bowling” ad.  It identified the candidate, delivered the message and used humor. Voters appreciate humor. Heidepriem and Knudson used it effectively in the ads previously mentioned and you can’t forget John Thune’s daughters in his ads in 2004.

Kristi Noem hit a little bump with filming her first ad in Texas but it was mostly inside political baseball stuff for the politically infected and most primary voters have zero recollection of the hiccup. I also liked Blake Curd’s internet video “The Rilie Factor”.

While not a Statewide race, the election maker voter contact of the Republican Primary is the life size cutout sign of Greg LaFollette candidate for Minnehaha County Auditor. You can put the winning check mark next to LaFollette.  This outstanding (literally) use of the commercial political sign (4x6) will break new ground in South Dakota campaigns.