Let’s take a look at Dale Cardwell’s latest ad in his campaign for U.S. Senate. Cardwell, a candidate in Georgia and former TV news reporter, has a terrific message: Washington is broken. (Boy, do we all know that.) And he, Dale Cardwell, newsy man, is outsider enough to fix it – presumably by not working for just the corporately-inclined, fat-cat lobbyista who are busily destroying our nation’s middle class.
Let’s face it though, Cardwell’s kinda dorky looking on-cam. And what’s with the 1990’s corporate-style, studio-based video production value in this video? The fakey lighting on the pointless, flowing drapery? If only the backdrop was green, then he could at least evoke Scarlett O’Hara’s green poteers she wore to call-on Rhett Butler, residing temporarily in an Atlanta jail, when she desperately needed some quick cold cash, something Cardwell could use too I hear.
Now might be a good time to take a moment and review the life and times of Tony Schwartz, the creator of the infamous and deceptively simple “Daisy” ad that sunk the Goldwater campaign in 1964. Schwartz died three days ago. And Cardwell’s campaign is gonna die soon too if his team can’t think up anything better than nicely lit drapes and a boring suit & tie.
One thing working in local TV news as a career path never does, alas, is help promote the slightest bit of media creativity. If Cardwell’s gonna get any attention between now and the July primaries, he’d better get new media clever… real quick.
Suggestion: Take a look at what is hot right now in political advertising.
Mostly Media 
Yes! If he wants this stuff to catch on, he could have a green screen contest like The Colbert Report had for John McCain.
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Way too complex for a broke campaign to produce. Still, some smart folk sitting around a table brainstorming until they came up with some good, workable, cheap ideas. And a DV cam of course. And say, a prominent GA celeb, a rap star maybe, to deliver the lines… and viola! A whole dirt-cheap new media campaign that’s good to go.
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I don’t think it’s too complex or expensive. He could just do a normal video, but throw up a $7 green cloth in the background instead of the aforementioned flowing, pointless drapes.
Voila, disembodied Dale Cardwell, ready for Youtube remixing.
iMovie has cheap chroma key plugins people could use (I’ve seen them for $3), and if you’re a real masochist you can even try it in Windows Movie Maker.
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