Nutter Commercial in Harpers

The October 29th issues of Harpers has an interesting article on the business of politics, "Selling toothpaste and candidates," by Ken Silverstein. He has two paragraphs on the "Olivia" ad for Michael Nutter's primary campaign:

Inside the ballroom, a parade of consultants regaled the audience with strategic advice and war stories. “We always say it’s not like selling toothpaste, but in a multi-candidate field it is like selling toothpaste,” Doc Sweitzer, a Democratic media strategist, said during one panel. “The voters are walking down the aisles to see which product cleans the teeth better and which one gives you better breath.”

A string of Sweitzer’s greatest advertising hits was projected upon a screen. One undisputed masterpiece was for underdog Michael Nutter’s winning mayoral campaign in Philadelphia. “My dad is the only candidate with a kid in public school so I know he cares,” the ad’s narrator, Nutter’s young daughter, says sweetly into the camera. Sweitzer beamed as the audience applauded his handiwork. “We’re talking to people who are consumers of TV,” he said. “They read TV the way we read books. High-concept, overly creative stuff doesn’t work.”

I think in an earlier post I attributed that ad to someone else. If so, I apologize for the error. The bulk of Silverstein's article is on the Art of Political Campaigning seminar that I went to one day last June. It was an interesting conference.