The plot has really thickened on that North Carolina GOP House candidate, B.J. Lawson, who ran an ad featuring a fake “Morgan Freeman” voiceover. It turns out that the GOP consultant who created the ad has a history of making a sales pitch to candidates: That he can get Morgan Freeman to record ads for them.
As Politico reports, Republican consultant Ben Mathis has also offered the voice of “Morgan Freeman” to a state Senate campaign in New York, plus the voice of Seinfeld actor and Family Feud host John O’Hurley.
As Mathis boasts in one e-mail:
Morgan doesn’t put his name on ads or do overt endorsements, whether it’s for a candidate or for a Visa commercial. That’s just how he is. You pay for the voice, but it’s the single most recognizable voice in the business and people recognize it and trust it. Just let me know if you still want me to proceed. If you want an actual endorsement I could see if I can get another celebrity to do that for you, but Morgan’s voice alone really sells.
Mathis responded to the e-mails, saying that he had raised the possibility of a “voice double” being used int he ads:
“I was personally very busy with production so all initial correspondence with potential clients was handled by my assistant. I have 100’s emails a day from our clients, potential clients, etc., and my assistant deals with all of those. In general I only deal with clients at a more advanced phase, especially during the busy election season. Those emails were written by him” said Mathis in an e-mail to POLITICO. “Had it gotten to the contract phase, it would have come across my desk and I would made it clear that we were not offering to Morgan Freeman, but Morgan’s voice double, just as I did with the Lawson campaign.”
