Mitt's: "Searched"
When advising campaigns I always think the "human element" ads are the strongest thing you can produce (on the positive side of the ledger). There is so much I like about this ad it's hard to fit it all in. One thing that stood out to me is the indictment it is to Giulianni. There's no timeline mentioned, there's no reference to the Mayor - but invoking New York City is way more than just symbolic. "Command Center"? Finding someone's LOST loved one? The funny thing is the producers may not have even intended it to be an anti-Giuliani message - but the conclusive overwhelming effect certainly leads the mind to that result.
I've said it soooo many times before Mitt's video team is perhaps the best I've ever seen in a presidential cycle. Ad after ad after ad have been so compelling, so dead center on target. This early in the primaries and they're already producing the quality of spots that we don't often see until late summer...
Dick Morris repeatedly says on nearly every television and radio show he does that the most important campaign ad is the "reponse" ad. Because for most, it is the "final positioning" of whatever the specific issue is in the minds of the voters. If that's true then Huck does himself pretty good in this newest ad. A firm rebuke to the red-faced-press-secretaries in waiting. And yet he manages to keep it positive. And that's hard to do. But this speaks to Huck's original appeal that the TownHall/NRO nexxus still really fails to grasp. An analyst who shall not be named spent yesterday documenting each gaffe that he could count of Huck's. Like a twelve year old with an abacus the score piled up. Then there was the self-congratulatory gloating on-air... but with all respect - it didn't move the needle on Huck. Huck's supporters aren't supporting him because he's perfect, or that he attempts to look, sound, or campaign perfectly. There is a trust factor that Huck's supporters are with him on that runs deeper than that - and that's why it drives the pointy-left-brainer-my-listeners-are-all-the-rich-smart-better-than-you-types a little crazy. Huck will never shop at Nordstrom, and people like him all the more for the fact that he's ok with that.
DISCLAIMER: For the first time in my punditry history I have chosen NOT to endorse publicly a GOP primary candidate. I am ready to support the nominee, even agressively as long as that nominee is not Rudy Giuliani, well and Ron Paul (but come one no one even thinks he's still running...) There are problems with every single one of our candidates and some significant ones with Mitt, Fred, and Huck, even more with McCain. Yet because any of these four would be clearly superior to Obama, Hillary, Edwards... I can eagerly work for any of them (for McCain while holding my nose.)