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Monday, December 31, 2007

 

Fred Thompson makes last minute pitch to Iowa

Fred makes a lengthy 17 minute pitch to the people of Iowa.



Not as slick as you'd imagine from Mr. Hollywood. Stumbles a bit with the teleprompter. Very static image and background, with weird distracting website over his head (though presidential oval is a smart motif). Poorly edited. Lacking smooth phraseology. Talking in the background from around 10:00 mark.

Not the most professional of videos, but he makes a solid play for the tag of "true conservative". He doesn't lay out a lot of specifics, but then who does these days? He does very clearly lay out the principles of the conservative base, and places himself squarely in that role.

Fred does bring in the Reagan name, but this is not a Reaganesque video. I've long thought Reagan just made it look easy, and that his Great Communicator status was the result of a lifetime of training specifically for it. This sort of speaking isn't the same as acting, as related as the skills may seem. There's a smoothness lacking here, a comfort with the words and phrases and manner of speaking that just isn't here.

I think he also suffers from not having a team of professionals working on these. He needs the top speech writer, the top producer, the top editor, etc. He suffers from their absence. While I appreciate the dream of a simple campaign, such an approach just doesn't work in the end. Now, a team so slick as to look simple, that's the ideal dream. But you just can't cut corners at this level, it looks amateurish and will cost votes. Maybe not ideal, but it's the way things are.

The video could be shorter and more impactful, but his play is clear- he wants the conservative vote. If he plays he right, maybe he ends up as a Veep counterpoint to the slicker winner. Could be that's the plan. That might work, but as a play for the ticket headliner, this video falls short.

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