Earlier this year, Republican Scott Brown miraculously won Edward Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts after running ads that showed him driving an old pickup truck. So here comes Scott Walker with the same regular-guy gimmick, hoping to drive his 1998 Saturn to victory in the Wisconsin governor's race.
This ad shows him behind the wheel and bragging that the car has over 100,000 miles. He points to his lunch, arranged on the car seat for maximum homeliness. "I pack a brown bag each day!" he says.
It's a shameless approach, especially after the Associated Press found that Walker's campaign does, in fact, run up big tabs at high-end restaurants. Besides, does he really think Wisconsin will pick a governor because of his lunches and car mileage? If they did, I'd have been elected years ago based on Campbell's tomato soup and a 1987 Chevy Cavalier.
Isthmus TV critic Dean Robbins will assess candidate commercials throughout the 2010 fall elections. Read more reviews of political campaign spots.