“My change in party will enable me to be reelected,” Sen. Arlen Specter says with a smirk on his face. Damning images and statements follow — a GOP logo, an old endorsement by President George W. Bush, a photograph with Sarah Palin. Specter repeats his earlier line, smirk intact. The narrator concludes, “Arlen Specter switched parties to save one job — his, not yours.”
This ad, titled “The Switch” and released by Rep. Joe Sestak’s campaign, capitalized on voters’ concerns that Specter had switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat not on ideological grounds, but simply to remain in power. It charged that Specter was not truly a Democrat. Sure enough, Sestak introduced himself at the beginning of the ad as “the Democrat.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Sestak had spent $1.6 million in distributing the ad and that the average broadcast television viewer in the city had viewed it 12 times. It is being heralded by press as a major reason for Sestak’s recent victory, but it is getting more credit than it deserves.
Various commentators have referred to it as the best political ad this campaign season. The Fix, a political blog run by The Washington Post, said it was perhaps “the turning point in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary.”
Even Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a supporter of Specter, acknowledged the impressiveness of the ad. “What Joe Sestak did right was hire a great campaign group,” Rendell told The Wall Street Journal. “His media outfit did a great job.”
The poll numbers, too, appear to confirm the ad’s importance. A Muhlenberg/Morning Call poll released on May 2 had Specter beating Sestak 48 percent to 42 percent. On May 7, the two were tied at 43 percent apiece. “The Switch” was released in the interim.
But trying to give so much credit to one ad — no matter how good — is too simplistic.
Oddly, with so many sources reiterating the significance of the ad, one of the few contradicting voices is coming from the maker of the ad itself, the political-consulting group known as The Campaign Group.
“It’s superficial to reduce a long, complicated election into one 30-second ad,” said J.J. Balaban, a principal consultant with The Campaign Group, which has been garnering much favorable press because of it. “I make the TV ads, but it’s wrong to give them the undue attention.”
In fact, it is perhaps another ad — a 60-second positive biographical spot about Sestak — that played a larger role in Sestak’s increased popularity. This ad details Sestak’s experience and qualifications, particularly his drive to reform health care in light of his daughter’s battle with a brain tumor.
“In a Democratic primary, people want to vote for something, not just against something,” Balaban said.
Internal polling by Sestak’s campaign found that he went from trailing Specter by 22 points to trailing by just six points within two weeks of the release of this positive ad, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. This means that the jump seen in the polls after the negative ad aired had been developing for quite some time. “The Switch” was released just 12 days before the election, by which time Sestak’s campaign had already gained a lot of traction.
Sestak couldn’t have defeated a 29-year incumbent who was supported by state and national big wigs with just a 30-second ad. It took a grueling months-long campaign to accomplish what he did.
Prameet Kumar is a rising Wharton junior born in India but raised in New York. His e-mail address is prameet@wharton.upenn.edu.
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