Behind the Ad: Babies, so many babies

By Richard K. Barry

Who: The David Perdue campaign for the U.S. Senate

Where: Georgia

What's going on: I've written a lot recently about the U.S. Senate election campaign in Georgia here, here, and here, so I won't cover familiar territory. I will just say that a bunch of GOP candidates are vying for the seat that will become vacant when Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) retires. Michelle Nunn is the presumptive Democratic nominee. Those in the know are saying this will be a close fight, at least in the general.

Businessman David Perdue is one of those running for the GOP nomination. He is a cousin of former Gov. Sonny Perdue. Purdue is mostly using his own money to talk about his business experience, while berating his fellow Republicans for having "too much" political experience, which seems to be something we are seeing a lot of from certain Republicans.

In that vein, Perdue has some very unusual ads, in which he points to the "childish behaviour" of politicians, specifically his GOP primary opponents, who, he says,  would already have solved our problems if they understood anything about the free enterprise system - a system Perdue almost claims to have invented.

The most recent ad begins with a bunch of computer generated babies in the foreground of the Capitol building. Perdue then comes on to give us his pitch without ever mentioning the babies.

Presumably, we are all supposed to know that the babies were introduced in earlier ads citing the aforementioned childish behaviour. 

It's all very confusing. 

Grade: Aside from baby fiasco, I find David Perdue very smarmy, though I suspect he finds himself extremely charming. I know, however, that with certain conservatives the lack of political experience is exactly what they want in their politicians. And it is the one thing Perdue has that his rivals lack. On the thought that one must turn weaknesses into strengths, I'll say this is not an awful ad, but it's not great. And that whole thing about running businesses being good training for running government didn't work all that well for Mitt. C

(I will do Mr. Perdue the favour he has not done us, by posting the ads back-to-back so it all makes sense, sort of. For the record, there is a second ad that is almost exactly the same as the first ad. Got it? Keep in mind that a lot of people would have seen the most recent ad with the babies in front of the Capitol with nary a mention by Perdue as to why they are in the ad at all. That must have been a moment.)