Via Mary Benton, we have the first non-Mayoral TV ad of the season, from Pam Holm:
My thoughts:
– Basically an intro ad, though a fairly substantive one. Holm’s pitch – she’s a strong financial manager who’ll keep a sharp eye on your tax dollars – is straightforward enough, and she makes it herself in direct fashion.
– Plenty of code words and catch phrases to remind Republicans of her bona fides – “protect your tax dollars”, “fought wasteful spending”, etc etc etc. As that fits nicely into all of the Mayoral messaging, it ought to have broad appeal.
– I hope she paid Vince Ryan a royalty for the use of his “watchdog, not a lapdog” slogan from 2008. Hey, it worked for him, so what the heck?
– I’d have lost the cutesy bit at the end where she turns to her husband and says “Right, Chuck?” One presumes she already has his approval. Maybe I’m overthinking this, but I thought that diluted her message a bit.
– Benton says she doesn’t know how much of an ad buy her team made. I took a peek in Holm’s finance report and didn’t see anything earmarked for TV, but given that report only goes up till September 24, that doesn’t mean anything. She had spent $10K on radio, in addition to $26K on direct mail. I doubt she has the funds to do a broadcast blitz, but she could probably be on cable for most of the rest of the month. Given that, it won’t shock me if MJ Khan joins her on the air soon.
– You see this, Ronald Green? This is what you have to worry about. Yeah, I don’t really a see a way in which you don’t make it to the runoff, either. But you know, you still have to win the runoff. How are you going to get your supporters back to the polls in December if they don’t even know you’re running?
– Finally, on a tangential note, I finally saw an Annise Parker ad on the tube tonight, on KHOU during the local news. I believe it followed a Peter Brown ad. Haven’t seen a Locke ad yet, but they just started running.
UPDATE: Greg has more.
UPDATE: Houston Politics weighs in.
Pingback: Where to find the candidates on YouTube – Off the Kuff
Pingback: We’ve got mail – Off the Kuff
Pingback: Eight days out: What the Controller candidates are spending their money on – Off the Kuff