Campaign video: Hoping voters will forget attacks, Coleman tries to go positive

By Paul Schmelzer 10/9/08 10:21 AM the largest advantage [he] has enjoyed all year" over Norm Coleman, with 43 percent of voters in the telephone survey saying they'll vote for Franken; 37 percent said they'd vote for Coleman while 17 percent said they'd opt for Barkley. Of those Barkley voters, only 3 percent say they're certain they'll cast their vote for the Independence Party candidate for Senate. It's the group Coleman must be targeting in his recent series of ads, which came out as various surveys suggest voters are turned off by Coleman's attack ads against Franken. Using either kids or a pensive, I-feel-your-pain delivery by Coleman, the ads seem like a last-second effort to turn the campaign around.&media=news&topic=politics" title="Digg this!"> Digg

A new Rasmussen poll out this morning shows Al Franken with “the largest advantage [he] has enjoyed all year” over Norm Coleman, with 43 percent of voters in the telephone survey saying they’ll vote for Franken; 37 percent said they’d vote for Coleman while 17 percent said they’d opt for Barkley. Of those Barkley voters, only 3 percent say they’re certain they’ll cast their vote for the Independence Party candidate for Senate. It’s the group Coleman must be targeting in his recent series of ads, which came out as various surveys suggest voters are turned off by Coleman’s attack ads against Franken. Using either kids or a pensive, I-feel-your-pain delivery by Coleman, the ads seem like a last-second effort to turn the campaign around.

The Star Tribune’s Minnesota Poll (which Coleman contests) found that 56 percent of those surveyed felt Coleman’s ads featured “mostly unfair personal attacks.” So these recent ads, two released last week and one debuting online yesterday, are a far cry from Coleman’s September commercials, which had titles like “Angry Al,” “No Accountability Al” and “Outraged” (”there’s a difference between being outraged and being out of control,” Coleman narrates). In this round, which is getting considerable metro airtime, he aims either for the homespun or the heartstrings, with varying degrees of success.

Coleman scores cute-kid points by featuring cancer survivor Wyatt Rech, but his “I definitely approve this message” is a cloying verbal parallel to the ad’s downhome harmonica soundtrack. Ditto for yesterday’s “Sarah” ad, which features Coleman’s daughter reminding us, through clips from a six-year-old campaign commercial that he, in his daughter’s unbiased opinion, has a “really good heart.”

Another, “Our Future,” casts a pensive Coleman as everyman, trying to convey empathy: “We’re all anxious…. We can point fingers, play the blame game or pull together…” Coleman, it’d seem, is hoping voters will forget his own finger-pointing and blaming in these last few weeks of Campaign ‘08.

Norm Coleman, “Wyatt,” :30