Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, the Sooner state's senior U.S. senator, is running some very curious—and clearly contradictory—television ads in the Tulsa market.
The first one praised the senator's "stubbornness," an obvious appeal to the senator's (supposed) independence and grit. The guy's a fighter for Oklahoma "pork," the ad made clear.
Okay—Jim's our tough guy in D.C. Or is he?
The second ad, out this week, shows Inhofe's (supposed) softer side. In it, a whispering female voice describes the senator's many quiet trips to Africa, where he's portrayed as a behind-the-scenes humanitarian.
Obviously, Inhofe wants it both ways. But the effect of these conflicting messages is likely to produce more confusion than support. Indeed, Inhofe would be better off to stick with his tough guy image, one that's a lot more credible than his new (and highly calculated) embrace of humanitarianism.
Finally, a note to the ad agency handling the Inhofe account: Drop the female whisperer. It's a gimmick, and not one that's going to win friends among Oklahoma voters.
2 comments:
Under the banner "One hard-headed man", no less an eminence than Mr. Batesline exhorts, "Oklahoma voters couldn't do better than to re-elect global warming skeptic Jim Inhofe to the U. S. Senate."
Never mind that an overwhelming majority of scientists working on climate change agree on the main points; Inhofe and his AEI "experts" in the pay of ExxonMobil say otherwise. (Inhofe received $290,000 from the oil giant for his 2002 campaign.)
Inhofe is the kind of guy to whom Upton Sinclair was referring: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
But considering the totality of Inhofe's public pronouncements, maybe Bates' line should be amended to "One bone-headed man."
We can do a lot better with Andrew Rice.
It greatly saddens me that Inhofe is still in office. His ideas on global warming are bought and paid for. He's still using the WMD idea to back up his support of the war.
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