Not to be impolitic, but John McHugh (R-NY) is a dolt. He seems smooth. But he's got nothing but standard-issue GOP talking points, and even on those, he's about six months behind and liable to screw it up. Take his latest on Iraq:

Will the Iraqis step forward and carry on their shoulders that which the American military has been carrying on theirs? If they don't, then we have to begin to face reality.

Begin to face reality? On Iraq? Well, we had to hit him on that ...

That sound-bite just seemed to capture a certain mind-set so beautifully. The mind-set of Friedman Units of time, of corners turned and light glimpsed at the ends of tunnels. Of denial. I mean, some time in the future we may "begin to face reality"? What a wanker.

So, we had to go with it ...

Here's the ad:

It's part of a general strategy of earned media, phone-banking, etc to tie McHugh ever more strongly to the Iraq debacle using his own words against him. Because Iraq ... well, that's the biggie. And since we have limited resources, we can't lose our focus on the biggest issues of all.

Just to give a little context on the "disappearing Congressman" visual of the ad, we did a previous ad with that image. We bought about 500-600 points in each market of that ad, and the word-of-mouth and memorability of it gained us a lot more exposure than that. Just about everyone has seen or heard of this ad a number of times ...

Now, we're not a highly funded campaign. In fact, we produce these ads in-house, with the same person (me) in charge of Internet outreach, policy, politics, media releases, media management, ad production, and ad placement ... uh, among other things. And we, well I, have followed a few basic rules to maximize our impact: repeat themes and visuals to make them stick better, concentrate each ad on a single theme/message to make it more clear in people's minds, come up with a single visual theme for McHugh (the "empty suit" visual), and stick to messages that can resonate with the news rather than build "issues" out of trivia (out-of-context votes on issues outside the biggies). Now, those aren't exactly earth-shaking insights, but they're particularly important in a less-funded campaign. And not followed enough, imo. Plus, by using McHugh's official photo, we are re-mixing and claiming his brand.

Luckily, though, we live in a very weird district: it's actually cheaper to reach people by TV than any other way. We get ads for 6-10 dollars per point. That's just crazy. But it has allowed us (since we have very little production costs because I make them ... this ad cost $200) to buy enough ads to actually make an impact, as long as we followed those rules, imo.

Back to the ad ... we knew, and the polls now reflect, that the electorate would turn back to Iraq strongly. John McHugh supports the policy, and the policy can best be illustrated by a burning car bomb. Rather than spend our time building case after case on a wide variety of issues, we're hanging a broad case all around a central pillar of Iraq.

{Bob Johnson is running in NY-23 against John McHugh. Donate if you can ... }