The Tom Horner campaign is unveiling two new TV spots, both of which hit heavily on the man in the middle theme. The first one calls Tom Emmer “extreme” and says Mark Dayton has “a poor history of doing his own job.” Horner has pledged not to run attack ads. Some might think this one is on the edge, but by today’s standards, I’m not going to throw the penalty flag.

Until now, obviously, Horner has been way behind in the money race and the TV ad race, plus he doesn’t have any “independent” groups advertising on his behalf.

Here’s the first ad:

Horner spoikester Matt Lewis says the donkey is actually physically present in the room as filmed, but the elephant is virtually present by some kind of movie magic.

The second ad is just a claim that Horner is drawing support from both Dems and Repubs. The woman in the ad is DFLer and former Mpls, City Council member Joan Niemec. The man is Tommy Merickel, whom the Horner press release describes as a lifelong Republican. Merickel is a member of the board of the state Chamber of Commerce and a vice president of the Taylor Corporation (as in Timberwolves owner Glenn Taylor). As I’ve noted before, up to now Horner has drawn a lot more public support from Repub former office holders than Dems.

Here’s the ad:

The ads strike me as pleasant and possibly effective. Spokester Lewis says the initial ad buy is $200,000 and the plan is to buy more time as fast as they can raise more dough. The elephant ad will start running statewide today. The lawn sign ad will be added to the rotation a few days from now.

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5 Comments

  1. At least he’s enriching his PR colleagues.
    Otherwise; money down the drain.

  3. I saw the elephant/donkey ad on KARE this evening. It’s compelling and convincing.

  4. I would expect Tom Horner to manage the taxpayers money much like he has managed the few dollars his campaign has to spend. Very wisely.

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