* Comptroller Leslie Munger’s new TV ad throws Mike Madigan, career politician, double-dipping, unbalanced budgets, tax hikes and pension holidays at her Democratic opponent Susana Mendoza…
* Script…
Meet Susana Mendoza, Mike Madigan’s political sidekick.
Mendoza has taken “career politician” to a new level. She collected two public salaries at the same time, raking in almost $2 million in taxpayer money and building two pensions.
And how does she pay for her double-dipping? Mendoza voted for unbalanced budgets, tax increases and even pension holidays that forced Illinois into a fiscal crisis. She even voted for the largest tax hike in state history.
Mendoza-Madigan, putting politics above people and Illinois just can’t afford her.
* Response from the Mendoza campaign…
“Leslie Munger’s false, negative ads, including her lie about double dipping - previously debunked by documented proof - are almost entirely bankrolled by just two of Bruce Rauner’s billionaire friends. You can make up a lot of lies with that kind of money, but it doesn’t change that fact that Leslie Munger, Rauner’s self-described “wingman”, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Governor Rauner, not the independent watchdog Illinois taxpayers desperately need.”
There is almost too much information here for me to take in all at once. I would rather focus on someone double dipping paid for by a tax increase and therefore unworthy to control the state’s checkbook. I would leave the image of Madigan but not necessarily mention it unless Madigan’s name ID really is that high, which I find hard to believe it is. If it was his step-daughter wouldn’t be a highly regarded state official.
Still skeptical a last minute ad blitz will pay off when early voting has already been going for 10 days, Munger faces Trump headwinds, and now people can distract themselves from this awful political season with the Cubs.
Just seems too little, too late to me.
- hisgirlfriday - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 12:03 am:
@Not It:
Agree about the too much information. It is confusing in that it says Madigan about as many times as Mendoza, who doesn’t have much name ID and so it seems like it would be harder for people to remember her as linked to Madigan.
That ad is also just generally off-putting with the floating text all over the place, the screech noises like nails on a chalkboard and all the changing colors like it’s trying to cause a seizure or something.
One other thing that I notice in looking at this… usually attack ads have horrible pictures of the opponent looking tired or dumb or old but Susana is just being her smiley peppy self in all of these.
Rhetorically heavy. It’s choppy to the point of bordering distracting.
It’s way too similar to Proft styled, cookie-cutter “they’re all bad” ads running all the time.
Too many messages. Pick a lane.
The only reason “B-” is even in the running is the double-edge of being similar to a theme, and keeping it uniformed and that Mendoza will now have to try to “keep up” on two fronts.
Mendoza Crew… You’re WAY over your head, like WAY over. You need to sane yourselves by having Labor and campaigns that seem to understand things better than you guys to drag Mendoza over the finish line… for you.
===“Leslie Munger’s false, negative ads, including her lie about double dipping - previously debunked by documented proof - are almost entirely bankrolled by just two of Bruce Rauner’s billionaire friends. You can make up a lot of lies with that kind of money, but it doesn’t change that fact that Leslie Munger, Rauner’s self-described “wingman”, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Governor Rauner, not the independent watchdog Illinois taxpayers desperately need.”===
Really? This is as awful as the choppy ad you are responding to with ridiculousness that in the end, will be noise.
The Ad is a “B-/C+”, but against responses that are just statements and not in the air, will it be enough to bury Mendoza?
It’s Munger’s to lose. This Ad is the continued drowning of Mendoza.
B+. It is better than Munger’s positive ad where she is stridently marching down the sidewalk. That was weird. Plus, it looked like she was overacting in the piece. This was better and to the point. Race is a tossup at this point. Mendoza’s positive piece is h o r r I b l e.
Mendoza needs some original thoughts in her campaign. One commercial talks about how she would hold politicians paychecks until they got a balanced budget. Not exactly original since Munger is already trying to do something like that.
Agree with Not it and @OW- Too bad Mendoza missed a prime opportunity for some free oppo.
“Rauner’s self-described “wingman”, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Governor Rauner, not the independent watchdog Illinois taxpayers desperately need.”
If she would have stuck with this and inserted her name in there somewhere it would have been short, sweet, and to the point.
===One commercial talks about how she would hold politicians paychecks until they got a balanced budget. Not exactly original since Munger is already trying to do something like that.===
One is actually breaking her constitutional oath, the other is not only agreeing to break an oath she hasn’t taken, she thought she’d do it earlier.
I dunno if you want your original thought to be in violation of the Illinois constituion.
I dunno if piggy-backing off that and riffing a message off that is good either.
The lone person in ALL these ads that has a shred of honesty is the woman asking Mendoza…
I don’t know how this ad plays out since I suspect it’s going to be lost in all the political noise out there. And people who don’t live eat and breathe politics are already beyond fed up with this political season. Personally, I don’t care for the production–it’s too busy for my taste. But as attack ad messages go it seems pretty focused on a couple of themes that mightily annoy some voters in this state (public service pension double dipping type shenanigans and eternal Illinois cronyism). For that I give it a B-.
Finally, to campaign staffs—ALL campaign staffs–not just Mendoza’s– please stop “responding” to every competing ad you don’t like with a lame poorly done press release or tweet. Yes, we know that’s all more aimed at reaching and bucking up your candidate’s supporters, not the voting public. But really, at this stage of the campaign aren’t there more urgent things to concentrate on?
Yikes, the poll must have come back really bad. Kitchen sink approaches seldom work. It wasn’t that long ago she had $5 million and five weeks, she could have parsed each of these hits out to its own ad and connected them all with a theme and really burned that in. Instead it looks like someone hit the panic button and ran everything now.
Also, for what it’s worth, the last thing I saw on my TV last night before I turned it off very late was the Munger positive ad on CBS in Chicago, so she hasn’t changed traffic yet.
It’s a decent run-of-the mill negative spot, if a little breathless.
I don’t think there’s any oxygen in the room for the comptroller’s race. It’s all about who shows up to vote for president then bothers to work their way down the ballot.
That’s tough for statewide Republican candidates in Illinois any presidential year. This year, more so, if you’re counting on suburban women to show up and vote Republican.
So its been 1 week. You said to see you in 2 weeks.. So far now Munger is still losing very bad and is very desperate. You still expect that to change in 1 week?
I know Susana and like her alot. If she is to win, her campaign staff has to get LABOR involved or more involved and start getting commercials on the air touting their support and getting them to walk the precincts. She can point to the debacle in Lincolnshire where Munger is from and paint her as anti-Labor, not anti-union, but anti-labor.
===She (Mendoza) can point to the debacle in Lincolnshire where Munger is from and paint her as anti-Labor, not anti-union, but anti-labor.===
Yep. 100%
The complete lunacy of having the lone statewide officeholder… appointed by Bruce Rauner, arguably Labor’s biggest Illinois foe in a generation… having her hometown as THE test case for Right to Work?
Then Munger, when asked about her hometown and RTW discusses… Chicago?
If Labor isn’t paying attention, that’s actually on them by now.
I can’t believe that wasn’t handled “better”(?) with the Limcolnshire Labor mess.
- Ron Burgundy - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 11:03 am:
This ad is OK. I liked the positive one better except for the odd “family in the rich living room, dressed alike, ‘release the hounds!’ moment” which looked liked something out of a Brooks Brothers or Walter E. Smithe (Chicago area high end custom furniture stores) commercial. That part seemed pretty out of touch.
What Word said. After voters get past President and US Senate, where Dems have a lock, there won’t be enough oomph left to get a lot of ticket splitting.
–Voted for Munger. We have to break the incestuous public employee union/Madigan stranglehold Illinois is trapped in.–
Dude, where is your head at? On the comptroller’s office, of all things? The real-good professionals who post honest, apple-to-apple numbers, no matter who’s in office?
“Dear Penthouse Forum, I never thought I’d be writing to you, but let me tell you about this freaky incestuous strangly trap-thing going on in Illinois…”
- blue dog dem - Tuesday, Oct 11, 16 @ 11:34 pm:
OW may be right.
- Red Flag - Tuesday, Oct 11, 16 @ 11:39 pm:
Mendoza’s own TV ad identifies her a “taxpayer watchdog” as if she is a first time candidate who never served a day in elected office.
- Not It - Tuesday, Oct 11, 16 @ 11:53 pm:
There is almost too much information here for me to take in all at once. I would rather focus on someone double dipping paid for by a tax increase and therefore unworthy to control the state’s checkbook. I would leave the image of Madigan but not necessarily mention it unless Madigan’s name ID really is that high, which I find hard to believe it is. If it was his step-daughter wouldn’t be a highly regarded state official.
- hisgirlfriday - Tuesday, Oct 11, 16 @ 11:57 pm:
Still skeptical a last minute ad blitz will pay off when early voting has already been going for 10 days, Munger faces Trump headwinds, and now people can distract themselves from this awful political season with the Cubs.
Just seems too little, too late to me.
- hisgirlfriday - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 12:03 am:
@Not It:
Agree about the too much information. It is confusing in that it says Madigan about as many times as Mendoza, who doesn’t have much name ID and so it seems like it would be harder for people to remember her as linked to Madigan.
That ad is also just generally off-putting with the floating text all over the place, the screech noises like nails on a chalkboard and all the changing colors like it’s trying to cause a seizure or something.
One other thing that I notice in looking at this… usually attack ads have horrible pictures of the opponent looking tired or dumb or old but Susana is just being her smiley peppy self in all of these.
- Will Caskey - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 5:03 am:
Not It nailed it. This is beyond overload.
It’s also the sort of thing a campaign does when they’re panicked.
- Rabid - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 6:48 am:
Got to look hard to see munger’s name I thought it was a green ad, watch it with the sound off and it looks like a Mendoza ad
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 6:53 am:
This is the ad you run when you are down 12 points and polling shows that none of your attacks gets you closer than six.
Still Mendoza needs two weeks of counter-punching ads.
- Earnest - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 7:32 am:
>Meet Susana Mendoza, Mike Madigan’s political sidekick.
Excuse me, I believe the term is not “sidekick” but “wingman.”
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 7:58 am:
To the Ad,
Rate it? “B- / C+”
“Why?”
Rhetorically heavy. It’s choppy to the point of bordering distracting.
It’s way too similar to Proft styled, cookie-cutter “they’re all bad” ads running all the time.
Too many messages. Pick a lane.
The only reason “B-” is even in the running is the double-edge of being similar to a theme, and keeping it uniformed and that Mendoza will now have to try to “keep up” on two fronts.
Mendoza Crew… You’re WAY over your head, like WAY over. You need to sane yourselves by having Labor and campaigns that seem to understand things better than you guys to drag Mendoza over the finish line… for you.
===“Leslie Munger’s false, negative ads, including her lie about double dipping - previously debunked by documented proof - are almost entirely bankrolled by just two of Bruce Rauner’s billionaire friends. You can make up a lot of lies with that kind of money, but it doesn’t change that fact that Leslie Munger, Rauner’s self-described “wingman”, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Governor Rauner, not the independent watchdog Illinois taxpayers desperately need.”===
Really? This is as awful as the choppy ad you are responding to with ridiculousness that in the end, will be noise.
The Ad is a “B-/C+”, but against responses that are just statements and not in the air, will it be enough to bury Mendoza?
It’s Munger’s to lose. This Ad is the continued drowning of Mendoza.
- McGruff - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 8:29 am:
B+. It is better than Munger’s positive ad where she is stridently marching down the sidewalk. That was weird. Plus, it looked like she was overacting in the piece. This was better and to the point. Race is a tossup at this point. Mendoza’s positive piece is h o r r I b l e.
- Mal - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 8:39 am:
The Ad basicly shows how desperate the Munger-Rauner team is.
- Sarcastic - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 8:41 am:
Mendoza needs some original thoughts in her campaign. One commercial talks about how she would hold politicians paychecks until they got a balanced budget. Not exactly original since Munger is already trying to do something like that.
- JS Mill - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 8:44 am:
Agree with Not it and @OW- Too bad Mendoza missed a prime opportunity for some free oppo.
“Rauner’s self-described “wingman”, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Governor Rauner, not the independent watchdog Illinois taxpayers desperately need.”
If she would have stuck with this and inserted her name in there somewhere it would have been short, sweet, and to the point.
Both are gentleman’s “C’s”
- menDOH!za - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 8:48 am:
I almost spit my coffee out this morning when I read her response to this ad, “…independent watchdog Illinois taxpayers desperately need.”
Sure.
The content in the ad is a A-
Ad itself isn’t flashy, gets a B
Keep those Chicago numbers up and Leslie wins this.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 8:50 am:
===”…independent watchdog Illinois taxpayers desperately need.”===
I think you need to lighten up on Munger.
See what I did there…
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 9:02 am:
===One commercial talks about how she would hold politicians paychecks until they got a balanced budget. Not exactly original since Munger is already trying to do something like that.===
One is actually breaking her constitutional oath, the other is not only agreeing to break an oath she hasn’t taken, she thought she’d do it earlier.
I dunno if you want your original thought to be in violation of the Illinois constituion.
I dunno if piggy-backing off that and riffing a message off that is good either.
The lone person in ALL these ads that has a shred of honesty is the woman asking Mendoza…
“You can do that?”
In regards to legislator pay.
That’s this race in a nutshell.
- Responsa - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 9:03 am:
I don’t know how this ad plays out since I suspect it’s going to be lost in all the political noise out there. And people who don’t live eat and breathe politics are already beyond fed up with this political season. Personally, I don’t care for the production–it’s too busy for my taste. But as attack ad messages go it seems pretty focused on a couple of themes that mightily annoy some voters in this state (public service pension double dipping type shenanigans and eternal Illinois cronyism). For that I give it a B-.
Finally, to campaign staffs—ALL campaign staffs–not just Mendoza’s– please stop “responding” to every competing ad you don’t like with a lame poorly done press release or tweet. Yes, we know that’s all more aimed at reaching and bucking up your candidate’s supporters, not the voting public. But really, at this stage of the campaign aren’t there more urgent things to concentrate on?
- Mal - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 9:04 am:
OW
Has it been 2 weeks yet?
Munger is still losing.
- The Captain - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 9:06 am:
Yikes, the poll must have come back really bad. Kitchen sink approaches seldom work. It wasn’t that long ago she had $5 million and five weeks, she could have parsed each of these hits out to its own ad and connected them all with a theme and really burned that in. Instead it looks like someone hit the panic button and ran everything now.
Also, for what it’s worth, the last thing I saw on my TV last night before I turned it off very late was the Munger positive ad on CBS in Chicago, so she hasn’t changed traffic yet.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 9:06 am:
- Mal -
Get a calendar, count, get back to us.
lol
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 9:08 am:
It’s a decent run-of-the mill negative spot, if a little breathless.
I don’t think there’s any oxygen in the room for the comptroller’s race. It’s all about who shows up to vote for president then bothers to work their way down the ballot.
That’s tough for statewide Republican candidates in Illinois any presidential year. This year, more so, if you’re counting on suburban women to show up and vote Republican.
- Mal - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 9:15 am:
OW
Its been at least 10 days. According to you Munger is supposed to be far ahead by now. She still looks very desperate. Lol
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 9:18 am:
===Its been at least 10 days===
LOL…
Again, get a calendar, count, get back to all of us.
What, anything in double-digits frightens you?
===Munger is supposed to be far ahead by now.===
Who said that? You can’t count and you are oblivious to Illinois POTUS year politics? Ugh.
You count, then your drive-bys might seem…thoughtful.
- Mal - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 9:29 am:
OW
So its been 1 week. You said to see you in 2 weeks.. So far now Munger is still losing very bad and is very desperate. You still expect that to change in 1 week?
Lol
- Amalia - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 9:29 am:
gotta get a bigger sink, Leslie. that’s it?!?
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 9:33 am:
===So its been 1 week.===
You sure? Where did those 3 lost days to “10″?
You’re as ridiculous as Mendoza’s version of the “Rauner Word Jumble”
===So far now Munger is still losing very bad and is very desperate.===
Cite?
Last poll has Munger down 8 with 22% undecided.
You CAN read a poll… right?
===You still expect that to change in 1 week?===
Ads running and now an attack ad, and Mendoza’s lackluster crew decides an embarrassing press release… helps?
I think you may want to go back to bed and start this day over…
- Skeptic - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 10:02 am:
Blrghhh…another morning I wake up and discover this election isn’t over yet.
- Ron Burgundy - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 10:03 am:
–not the independent watchdog Illinois taxpayers desperately need–
I’m sure not seeing one here.
- HRC2016 - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 10:30 am:
I know Susana and like her alot. If she is to win, her campaign staff has to get LABOR involved or more involved and start getting commercials on the air touting their support and getting them to walk the precincts. She can point to the debacle in Lincolnshire where Munger is from and paint her as anti-Labor, not anti-union, but anti-labor.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 10:52 am:
At this point I know who I will vote for and will ignore the negative political ads on both sides.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 10:56 am:
===She (Mendoza) can point to the debacle in Lincolnshire where Munger is from and paint her as anti-Labor, not anti-union, but anti-labor.===
Yep. 100%
The complete lunacy of having the lone statewide officeholder… appointed by Bruce Rauner, arguably Labor’s biggest Illinois foe in a generation… having her hometown as THE test case for Right to Work?
Then Munger, when asked about her hometown and RTW discusses… Chicago?
If Labor isn’t paying attention, that’s actually on them by now.
I can’t believe that wasn’t handled “better”(?) with the Limcolnshire Labor mess.
- Ron Burgundy - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 11:03 am:
This ad is OK. I liked the positive one better except for the odd “family in the rich living room, dressed alike, ‘release the hounds!’ moment” which looked liked something out of a Brooks Brothers or Walter E. Smithe (Chicago area high end custom furniture stores) commercial. That part seemed pretty out of touch.
- walker - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 11:10 am:
What Word said. After voters get past President and US Senate, where Dems have a lock, there won’t be enough oomph left to get a lot of ticket splitting.
- Ron - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 3:38 pm:
Voted for Munger. We have to break the incestuous public employee union/Madigan stranglehold Illinois is trapped in.
- Oswego Willy - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 4:04 pm:
===We have to break the incestuous public employee union/Madigan stranglehold Illinois is trapped in.===
Have no idea what this means in regards to the Office of the Comptroller.
No idea.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Oct 12, 16 @ 5:08 pm:
–Voted for Munger. We have to break the incestuous public employee union/Madigan stranglehold Illinois is trapped in.–
Dude, where is your head at? On the comptroller’s office, of all things? The real-good professionals who post honest, apple-to-apple numbers, no matter who’s in office?
“Dear Penthouse Forum, I never thought I’d be writing to you, but let me tell you about this freaky incestuous strangly trap-thing going on in Illinois…”