Review of "I Am Not a Witch" Ad by Christine O'Donnell

She may be forever defined by the opening words of her political ad which received a lot of national attention in the United States. "I am not a witch," said Christine O'Donnell, "... I am you."

This unusual comment followed an episode of Politically Incorrect eleven years ago during which she said, "I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven ... I hung around people who were doing these things."

Christine O'Donnell is not media savvy. This became immediately clear when she won the Republican primary for the Delaware Senate. She quickly showed she doesn't know when to speak to reporters nor when not to speak to them.

O'Donnell cut herself off from the national media by refusing to do more interviews. She even ignored Bill Maher's invitations to return to his program where she cut her public speaking teeth by appearing on over 20 episodes. (That was understandable of course because he had embarrassed her by resurrecting the episode when she mentioned her near-witch experience.)

Didn't Christine O'Donnell consider before she started her campaign how badly this unconventional closed-door posture would affect her credibility? Or how the media would be able to attack her and she couldn't defend herself? And that what they said about her would define her indelibly?

The media painted her as extremist and tried to define her as the second coming of Sarah Palin. She began with even fewer credentials than the former Governor of Alaska. Did she offer something better than the former vice-presidential candidate and media lightning rod? Or did she make the same mistakes as Palin?

One of the moderators of the Delaware Senate Debate with Chris Coons asked her the same question Katie Couric asked Palin: name a recent Supreme Court ruling you disagree with.

"Oh, gosh. Give me a specific one," she answered.

Why didn't she have the foresight to anticipate this question?

It is not surprising that a person who has difficulty understanding the modern media and gotcha journalism also lacks wisdom on choosing political ad content.

How was it that nobody in her campaign stopped for a second and thought, "How will people react to this ad? Is it going to become a parody on SNL?" Saturday Night Live destroyed Palin (if there was anything left after the Couric interviews); then they torched the candidate from Delaware with a parody they said was "paid for by the Coven to elect Christine O'Donnell, who is not a witch."

Conservative TV host Kathleen Parker of Parker Spitzer asked the ad man, Fred Davis, what on earth he was thinking when he put the ad together.

"I thought it was important, and Christine thought it was important," Davis explained, "to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘okay, that was before, this is after now, let’s move on to what’s really important to the people of Delaware.’ ”

O'Donnell, however, expressed regret: "I haven't publicly stated this, and I don't know if I'll get in trouble for saying that, but our intention was to kill it and that's not what happened."

More recently she has claimed a divine mandate to run for office. She made this outrageous claim in an interview on CBN, the network of Pat Robertson, who himself made a similar statement when he ran for president in 1988.

The political ad itself was a terrible idea. The best political ads are attack ads traditionally, but it was completely defensive. Not only that, she was defending herself on a subject of no consequence to Delaware voters.

In an interview with a CNN reporter, O'Donnell herself turned down some questions about controversial comments she'd made in the past by saying they had nothing to do with the interests of the people in Delaware. In the interview she stayed on message, so why did she go off it in the ad?

In addition to the weak content, her delivery in the ad really wasn't convincing. It seemed contrived as if she was trying too hard to say, "I'm one of you."

The actual script wasn't worth the paper it was written on, either.

It's not just about the will; it's about the skill. Christine O'Donnell should know that being a regular guest on Politically Incorrect doesn't make you ready for the media during a campaign to be a senator. Anyone with a controversial past must have special speaking skills and be very media savvy to overcome it. She has said she has done media consulting work but that hasn't made her media savvy--or wise enough to hire a PR agency to make up the deficit.

Rating: 1 star

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O'Donnell's advertising blues continue

Ironically Christine O'Donnell aired a short ad she later regretted, as noted above, but can't get the long ad she wants shown aired! The Washington Post is reporting that for various reasons (or excuses?) her new 30-minute "ad" (documentary?!) failed to be broadcast: O'Donnell has trouble airing 30-minute TV ad in Delaware.

We don't know if Fred Barnes, the Witch ad man, was fired, but he was replaced for this new promotional effort by Screaming Dime Productions. There's little to no information about this company online; most of the info about it relates to O'Donnell.

WP says she kept announcing the long ad on Twitter only to tweet again when her life story wasn't broadcast saying it wasn't her program. It seems like an odd way to run a campaign when your staff are unable to confirm where and when an ad is going to be broadcast.

It also seems a bit late in the day to be trying to win voters over, just days before the election. She should probably have defined herself with a half-hour ad at the beginning instead of trying to redefine herself at the end. It may have been recent polls showing her surging that motivated her enough to go all out with 30 minutes instead of 30 seconds.