23 Comments - curious - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 2:34 pm: The Ryan Ad B+ The Dold with and D not an E = A+, if only for originality. - Niles Township - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 2:36 pm: Boy does Quinn seem to have the best web videos out there. - VanillaMan - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 2:38 pm: The Ryan ad is a winner. Quinn will lose in this kind of campaign. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 2:42 pm: If you want some insight into how much of a shoe-string budget Jim Ryan is working with, check out the footage at the beginning - the part with him walking down the street with a few aids. One of those aids is Eric Robinson, who is not currently with any campaign. Turns out, this is footage from a 2002 JRyan ad, recycled. - Oswego Willy - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 2:44 pm: The Jim Ryan ad is a solid B. With his name id compared to the others, its probably best to reintroduce and remind the voters he is running, so its a solid effort. Dold - Solid, solid B, good start, made me hungary for more, so it passed that it did what it was suppose to do. To keep the B? Keep it catchy, and keep them coming, otherwise it will be “hey, remember that catch tune … who was it …” - Yellow Dog Democrat - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 2:50 pm: The Ryan ad is exactly what you’d expect. Regurgitated resume, safe, B+. Quinn ad: liked the barbershop, this one’s well done, but did we expect his kids to run him down? If the message is “Pat Quinn’s a great leader AND a great dad, show father and sons shooting hoops together, not sons talking about watching hoop dreams with dad. Dold with a “D”: Republican or Democrat? What district, or state for that matter? Creativity is good, but you can’t ignore the basics. Speaking of which, you spent way too much money on yard signs. - LN - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 2:52 pm: “Dold with a D” is golden with a g. A+. For JRyan, I’m not so sure reminding voters of an election he lost is a good idea. Obviously he didn’t “take on Blagojevich” strong enough. The boxing gloves thing at the beginning seems kinda random. I haven’t even heard of the college he taught for. C+. - Cosmic Charlie - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 2:56 pm: Quinn does have great web videos I agree. But look at the counts they are getting. Seems like a lot of time and money for a couple hundred hits. Just shows how unless you name is Barrack the internet still is not a meat and potatoes kind of campaign tool. You can hit more people for free in one hour at an L stop as you can over a week with a web video that cost a couple grand to produce. The campaign world still has not quite figured out how to make the internet a reliable campaign tool. - OneMan - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 2:57 pm: LN – I got my MS from Benedictine so I don’t know how to take that (it used to be Illinois Benedictine College)… B+ for the Ryan ad, he needs to do the bio stuff. The Quinn boys, not bad a little random, liked the music. Dold — Loved it, some of the best stuff since Tim Newkirk - LN - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 3:06 pm: OneMan: I’m sure it’s a fine school & judging by your astute and relevant commentary it has served you well. I just don’t know anything about it. My train of thought is simply that if he taught at a more well-known school with a good reputation I would associate that with him and my opinion of him would improve. - shore - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 3:22 pm: it also looks like dan curry. he looks like 2 different guys in the video. b+ dold.gross c- quinn b+. though this sons thing worked so well for potus romney in iowa. - Rapid Responder - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 3:27 pm: Jeepers. Is Ryan really rehashing that footage? I like the boxer image, but talking about Blago and corruption might not fool everyone. I would like to see the names of the Republicans Ryan did prosecute, because he didn’t do anything when it came to George Ryan, Roger Stanley and Lee Daniels. Good ad though. 8/10. I don’t really get that Quinn Stories ad. The only thing I take from it is Quinn is agood dad. They should do more features with regular people, like that one with the barber. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 3:30 pm: ===like that one with the barber. === Different producer. This video is not from the in-house guy, as I wrote above. - CircularFiringSquad - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 3:52 pm: Give jimRYAN a solid D- …He did not take on Blagoof…..he got KO’d…. he did zip on that other Ryan …..spent a lot of time on the efforts to execute Rolando Cruz and now thinks taking tolls from suburban drivers to run state government is a nifty plan…..and then is the “see no evil” approach to Stooie. It is hard to believe this jimRyan effort is weaker than ‘02, but that looks like that’s the verdict. - truthman - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 4:20 pm: Can’t Ryan find some real supporters to join him in his commercial besides Dan Curry and Eric Robinson? - wordslinger - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 4:29 pm: The Ryan and Dold ads are fine. It seems kind of weird that Ryan has to do an intro ad, but it’s probably a good idea. For Dold, I’m not sure you should be sticking a sign up in a Metra train, but no biggie. - So what that Ryan used recycled footage... - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 4:53 pm: in these tough economic times maybe it’s a good thing that a candidate is being resourceful and not flashing and wasting wads of political cash around just to get on TV. Ryan’s usage of old footage, while maybe not what he would truly like to be doing, isn’t so much of a negative–it’s actually clever and a good idea. Like many Illinoisans he’s managing on a tight budegt. He is being resourceful, and he he could easily spin it to say how much he is truly in touch with most people in Illinois. If done right Andy McKenna’s slick rich boy image can be used against him. McKenna presumably has never had to work hard a day in his life. He presumably has no idea what it is like to have go or do without. Hence he spends millions of his own personal wealth on slick political campaign ads. It’s rather unseemly how much bragging goes on about political campaign wealth and how when elected the most wealthy political campaigns that win come up intellectually short when addressing government financial woes. In other words, if they were as adept at money for the state as they at when it comes to raising money for themselves… Isn’t Mayor Daley getting his feet held to fire over his ability to get money hand over fist for the Olympics, but not so much when it comes to the things that the average chicagoan wants or needs? - Yellow Dog Democrat - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 5:03 pm: “In these tough economic times maybe it’s a good thing that a candidate is being resourceful and not flashing and wasting wads of political cash around just to get on TV.” Spending hundreds of thousands on an ad buy but not the $10K it costs for some quality new footage isn’t “resourceful,” its pennywise, pound foolish. For example, Jim Ryan MIGHT have been smart after sending a few innocent men to jail that he might want just a little more diversity in his t.v. ads. - Middle of the Road - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 5:04 pm: Unfortunately, I think Jim Ryan doesn’t look his best. He’s gone through a lot in his life, and it shows in this ad. The messaging is good, but the recent images of him in comparison to those in 2002 make him look tired. I’m not saying that would affect my vote, but it counts among the great unwashed. - quinn fan - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 5:24 pm: nice ad for the gov–but how many ppl will see it? - Not Bad - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 7:35 pm: Like any normal voter but insiders like ourselves would even know Curry or Robinson let alone remember old footage from 2002. I give Ryan a B+. Shows the character of the man. He even continues to fight when knocked down from the tribulations and trials of life. He ends with giving a good glimpse of how he can improve people’s lives. Well done. - Some Guy - Tuesday, Jan 5, 10 @ 10:00 pm: That song is the beginning, high point, and end of the Dold campaign, I predict. TOO catchy, nobody is going to hear what he stands for. Ryan’s ad is pretty weak and doesn’t seem to kick him up above the noise level of the other candidates, I think his best bet is to do spots where he does all the talking, right to the camera, just the facts, ma’am. Ryan’s whole strength is that he’s already “been there, done that” , compared to his rivals. He should play to that, since we are in really desperate times in Illinois and people are looking for someone - ANYone - who can truly lead and make the hard calls. One more guy making vague budget promises and vowing not to raise taxes? No thanks. The Quinn piece is nice, can I vote for that guy, instead of the one I’ve seen the past ten days? He sounds like a good guy that would tell me the truth. - Dnstateanon - Wednesday, Jan 6, 10 @ 7:15 am: He’s retreading tape to save money and that’s good maybe people feel he’s doesn’t have the fire in the belly to run for the 10 months from Feb. to Nov. so he doesn’t have the money for even to tape the commercial. He says in the Ad that he is against raising taxs but hasn’t he said he would raise taxs later? Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.