Last week, the folks at Politics magazine, also known as Campaigns & Elections, asked me to host their Reed Awards which are given out to political consultants in catagories ranging from Best Independent Expenditure Radio Ad in a Statewide Race to polybag inserts and yard signs. A few years ago I hosted the Pollies, which is a rival set of awards given out by the Association of Political Consultants. There were fewer awards at that one and I got to do more shtick, like how Frank Luntz would advise Saddam Hussein (it’s been a few years as I said.) “People don’t see Saddam, the family man….Try do more events with your wives.” This time the buzz of awards meant less shtick and more handing them out.
One can have a laugh at the whole thing, but the fact is that in an era of McCain-Feingold, political consulting and messaging remains a part of life and it’s not going to away. The bipartisan panel of judges doles out awards on the basis of effectiveness and not ideology or, dare we say, truth in advertising so the evening had a kind of moral neutrality about it that would probably infuriate TPM readers about all that’s wrong with Washington. One of the awards went to an ad for Alaska Rep. Don Young. That said, what the judges came up with was the panoply of the American political adviertisement. My favorite was the Truthandhope.org’s local voices spot which, I think, historians may look at to understand how Obama won. It also won the equivalent of Best Picture, i.e. Best TV Ad in the Presidential Race.
See it here:
