The Online Antics of Romney and Perry Continue: Both GOP Candidates Release New YouTube Ads

While the televised GOP debates have garnered plenty of attention and scrutiny from political pundits as well as from the general public, the traditional TV debate format lacks a certain something that recent online video ads are providing an abundance of: production value.

Forget about the grainy, shaky homemade YouTube videos that you might be accustomed to. The videos coming out of the camps of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Texas Governor Rick Perry are reminiscent of previews for Hollywood movies.

Perry’s new video ad, “Rick Perry - America’s Jobs Governor,” focuses on the Texas Governor’s jobs record. The video opens with statistics from an October 13^th Bloomberg Business report, which cites Perry as having the best jobs records in comparison to his fellow Republican candidates.

As the reporter’s voice narrates, “He has the best jobs record in his state during his tenure, better than Utah Governor Huntsman, who would have been in second, or Massachusetts under Romney, who would be last.”

The main visual focus of the video is on Perry’s recent trip to Pittsburgh, where he met with local factory workers. However, when Perry begins talking about energy, the ad cuts to a towering oil platform and then to a sailboat navigating in front of an offshore wind turbine farm. There’s also a slow-motion shot of a little girl spinning around with a sparkler in each hand.

While Perry’s nearly two-and-a-half minute long video has a positive, triumphant tone, complete with a classical score playing in the background, Romney’s new video offers a different approach.

“The Facts” is an attack ad, which begins with a clip of George Stephanopoulos​ interviewing Perry. In the interview, Perry is accused of having the unemployment rate in Texas double during his tenure and is also accused of creating more government jobs than private ones. In the video, Perry responds by saying, “Well, I disagree with those numbers.”

Romney’s video forgoes the close-ups of American workers and the sweeping vistas of the country’s energy infrastructure. Instead, the one-minute video offers lots of text as well as a clip of President Obama announcing that the “economy is now growing;” the suggestion being that both Perry and the President fail to recognize that there is a problem. To increase the sense of foreboding, the background music consists of booming drums.

For both Romney and Perry, using online videos is not an entirely new campaign strategy. However, one candidate, Romney, clearly has more of a penchant for the format. While the RPerry2012 YouTube channel only offers 11 videos at the time of this article’s publication, the mittromney YouTube channel offers 56 videos.

Related posts:

1. Perry Vs. Romney Round 2: The Battle of the Online Video Ads
2. Romney Under Fire: Texas Pastor Labels Romney’s Religion a Cult, Perry Launches New Attack Ad
3. Romney/Perry Republican Showdown Update: Christie’s Out of the Presidential Picture, Recent Poll Shows Romney Has the Lead
4. Romney contrasts business experience with Perry
5. FACT CHECK: Perry, Romney Twist Records in Debate

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Posted by erik devaney on Oct 18 2011. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry