Legal Commentary

Contrasting Ads in FL-25

By Professor University of Miami School of Law

Contrasting ads in FL-25.

First, Joe Garcia again lampoons incumbent Mario Diaz-Balart:

Next, Mario Diaz-Balart trowels on the innuendo, suggesting that Garcia somehow has a connection to … Enron (!):

Both ads strike me as flawed, but in different ways. Garcia’s ad has a very weak and silly start. Its point risks getting lost on the split screen. And it’s high risk: ridicule can backfire…. Although it’s interesting that the politically engaged Cuban-American I sat next to on the plane the other day who said he thought Joe’s ads were too much had a few minutes earlier (unconsciously) adopted the very phrase in Joe’s first and most effective effort, “one-trick pony”.

The production values on the Diaz-Ballart ad are better, as you’d expect given his is designed for TV while the Garcia ad is a web-only quickie. But it seems to me that the ad has two more serious problems. First, the claim it makes is pretty silly, and can only work with voters who know nothing about the candidate. It’s too late for that group to be sizeable, although maybe it includes a good chunk of the undecided. Second, when the ad says “get rid of Enron Joe” it makes it sound like he’s the incumbent. Maybe that’s supposed to be a subtle hope that voters will think he is and vote to throw the rascal out — but to anyone who knows the score, and most voters do, this will look weak.

And, indeed, Channel 10 totally debunked Mario Diaz-Balart’s ad:

As Garcia himself said in a recent email blast:

While serving on the Public Service Commission I helped usher-in the biggest utility rate cut in Florida history, which saved Floridians $1 Billion and forced FP&L to share excessive profits with consumers.

Diaz-Balart is scared of my record of fighting for consumers so he is trying to lie his way to re-election. …

One can see why Mario is run away from his record.  If I had been in Congress for six years and only passed one bill, while giving myself five pay raises, and voting against healthcare for children, services for our returning veterans and giving oil companies billions in tax breaks, I would be doing the same.

Full post as published by Discourse.net on September 26, 2008 (boomark / email).