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The Candidate: Chellie Pingree (D), running for First District Congressional Seat now held by Tom Allen (D), against Charlie Summers (R).
Ad title: “Opportunity”
Length: 30 seconds
Produced by: Dixon/Davis Media Group, based in Washington, D.C.
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Pingree: |
Times are tough. And America’s off track. We’re facing some real challenges. But together we can make sure Maine is ready to turn them into opportunities, |
On the Screen: |
“Create Opportunity” |
Narrator: |
By investing in new sources of affordable energy that make Maine a leader in American-made fuels, and creating good-paying jobs that can’t be exported |
On the Screen: |
“Create Quality Jobs”
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Pingree: |
I’m Chellie Pingree and I approved this message, because I know we’ve got what it takes. Working with leaders from both parties, we can make the right choices and finally put middle class families first again.
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MPBN's Barbara Cariddi researched the claims made in this political advertisement by Chellie Pingree (D) in her campaign to win Maine's First District Congressional seat now held by Rep. Tom Allen (D). |
“Times are tough. And America’s off track.” |
The proof of “tough times” can be found in personal income data, according to the Pingree campaign. The campaign quotes a Wall Street Journal story dated September 30, 2008 which noted a decline in personal disposable income:
“The timing of the government’s economic-stimulus plan, which doled out some $107 billion in checks to millions of low- and middle-income Americans, helped consumers absorb higher prices but did little to bolster household balance sheets. Disposable personal income rose by 5.3% in May, when most checks were received, but then declined for three straight months. In August, disposable income sank by an inflation-adjusted 0.9%, or $91 billion, according to Commerce Department data.”
The WSJ story accurately describes the latest data on personal income from the U.S. Commerce Department.
To back up its assertion that American is “off track” the Pingree campaign points to a poll released in June by the Pan Atlantic SMS Group in Portland, which focused on Maine residents. That poll of 400 randomly-selected Maine adults was conducted June 10-18, 2008, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent. It found that 59.8 percent of those surveyed thought that the state of Maine was headed in the wrong direction, while 23 percent thought the state was headed in the right direction. More recent national polls have shown a much higher level of pessimism about the direction of the country among Americans in general. An early October Gallup poll found that Americans’ satisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. has reached a all-time low.
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“We can make sure Maine is ready to turn them into opportunities, by investing in new sources of affordable energy that make Maine a leader in American-made fuels...” |
The feasibility of creating jobs by investing in affordable energy was examined by the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute commissioned by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank based in Washington, D.C. The Institute assessed the state-by-state economic impact of investing $100 billion federal dollars in alternative energy projects. It concludes that Maine’s share of that money, some $400 million dollars, could create more than 9 thousand jobs, and cut the state’s unemployment rate from 5 percent (the unemployment rate in June; it’s since risen to 5. 6 percent.) to 3.8 percent. Whether this scenario would make Maine a “leader in American-made fuels” is debatable. But 9 thousand jobs is a significant number for Maine. The state’s biggest employer, supermarket chain Hannaford Brothers, employs between 8 and 9 thousand, according to Maine's Department of Labor.
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| Working with leaders from both parties, we can make the right choices and finally put middle class families first again. |
Pingree’s emphasis on the word “right” implies that the undefined “choices” Congress has made in recent years have been the wrong ones and that they’ve hurt the middle class. Pingree doesn’t get specific here, but other prominent Democrats, including current First District Congressman Tom Allen, have heavily criticized the Bush administration’s tax cut packages enacted in 2001, 2003 and 2006, claiming that the benefits have gone primarily to the wealthy, while the middle class has seen its disposable personal income decline. A study last year by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that, in general, the biggest beneficiaries of the tax cuts have been the wealthiest Americans. The study was reported in the New York Times last year.
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Amy Fried
University of Maine
- Associate Professor of Political Science
- Associate Dean for Research in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
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Pingree’s ad opens with the candidate speaking and she takes a soft and direct tone throughout. By using the candidate herself, the ad attempts to make a personal connection with voters. At the same time, the ad is not focused on Pingree herself but on public policy. At a time of economic difficulty and discontent, Pingree starts by recognizes that “times are tough.” She then pivots to her message that these conditions can be overcome and turned to opportunity for the state and the middle-class. Much of the rest of the ad develops this theme as most of the images show Pingree with one or two other people who exemplifies economic health and growth. One individual shows Pingree a solar panel and another is in a workshop. There is also a picture of a windmill, the favored picture in many ads of 2008, whether run by T. Boone Pickens, John McCain or Barack Obama. The pairing of Pingree with one or two individuals rather than groups of people reinforces the personal feel of the ad, with Pingree in conversation with those people as well as listeners at home.
A second theme in the ad is bipartisanship. Toward the end of the ad, Pingree says that solutions will come from “working with leaders from both parties.” With this Pingree, a Democrat, appeals particularly to independent voters as well as Republicans. Furthermore, she invokes an ideal many Maine people favor.
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Ron Schmidt
University of Southern Maine
- Associate Professor of Political Science
- Specialties: Political Theory, Racial and Ethnic Politics and Urban Politics.
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Chellie Pingree's new ad, 'Opportunity,' is an exercise in community definition, avoiding anxieties over freshman legislators and national
crisis by focusing on Maine's potential for power and influence. It
also works to define the candidate, of course; Pingree is not
identified in the ad as a Democrat, nor as part of the larger national
Democratic governing strategy. Strategically, I think this is
probably a wise decision. Maine's voters are less openly partisan
than voters in some other parts of the country, and are perhaps more
wary of outside commitments. There is no incumbent in this race --
Representative Tom Allen is currently running against Susan Collins
for Senate -- and Pingree needs to define as a Mainer first, and to
explain what that means at this moment in time.
The ad begins by acknowledging the national situation but insists on
a local focus. "Times are tough," Pingree says at the beginning of
the ad, "and America is off track. We're facing some real challenges,
but together we can make sure that Maine can turn them into
opportunities." This Chellie Pingree is not the former head of a
Washington-based organization; she is part of the "we" that can make
sure that the people of Maine benefit during hard times. The ad
resonates with former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill's dictum that "all politics is local"; the ad does not identify Pingree's campaign
with either political party, but rather positions Maine's first
district as a kind of fulcrum, "working with leaders from both
parties," making "Maine a leader in American-made fuels," and not in
creating jobs that can "be exported." The ad strikes a hopeful note
(reinforced by Pingree's earnest promise that she endorses the
message, although it is impossible to hear that sentence as anything
other than a mandated formula) in a way that may appeal to Maine
voters. "Opportunity" does not linger over which first-time
representative will soon be joining a chaotic U.S. Congress, but
depicts a community of people who can exercise some control over their
fate precisely at a time when the nation as a whole may seem quite
*out* of control.
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