Tolbert: Pryor’s Weak, Confusing TV Ad

Sen. Mark Pryor released his first campaign ad this week in response to around $700,000 of spending by a group on the right – saying he votes with Obama 95% of the time – and the left – criticizing him for voting against the background checks.

To me, the ad fails for a variety of reasons.

First of all, the ad itself is weak in that Pryor tries to have it both ways within the ad.  It is impossible to tell where he stands on the issue of gun control after viewing the ad.  “I’m committed to finding real solutions to prevent gun violence while protecting our Second Amendment rights,” says Pryor.

This is a pretty meaningless statement that appears to be written by a consultant trying to appeal to both the gun control crowd in the first half of the sentence and the NRA crowd in the second part.  You can even see the Senator’s eyes move from side-to-side as he reads it off the teleprompter.  His inconsistent statement fits his inconsistent position getting a D rating by the NRA in the past.

Secondly, the fact that Pryor is having to run an ad with over 17 months to go before the general election and no announced primary or general election opponent shows that he is really in trouble.  Rothenberg lists Pryor as the most vulnerable incumbent senator.  The ad buy is basically admitting Rothenberg is correct and does not signal confidence.

On top of this, it appears the ad buy is relatively small compared to the $700k being spent against him.  Sometimes a small ad buy can make sense with the goal of getting “earned media,” meaning the ad gets played on news reports and therefore you get larger exposure.  But the earned media Pryor is getting is primarily discussing how his campaign is in trouble and he is having to spend money on ads.  Does this type of earned media help him?

Overall, it is really hard not to draw a similarity between Pryor’s campaign and former Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s campaign going into her 2010 election.  The ad seems to attempt to play lip service to both sides of this gun control issue which was a strategy Lincoln attempted to employ without success.

One difference is Lincoln did not go up with any early ads, which was one criticism from Monday morning quarterbacks.  Perhaps Pryor is attempting to learn from her mistakes.  I suppose we will see if this works, but so far I see it as a weak start.