New Haven Independent

posted by: David Morganti on August 2, 2010  12:45pm

The Denise Merrill spot is far and away better one and actually convinced me to vote for her.  Not sure I got the guitar thing in the Garcia one.  Seemed flat and not very compelling too.

posted by: Ben Berkowitz on August 2, 2010  12:50pm

I like both of these candidates but both of these ads are equally cheesy and belittle me as a viewer/voter.

If the job is to get people to come out and vote you might want to start by not talking to people as if they were children.

#FAIL

posted by: abg on August 2, 2010  4:46pm

Anybody who casts a vote based on 30-second television ads needs to have his or her head examined. Listen to the candidates’ recent debate on WATR radio at (http://rifkinradio.com/audio1/debate.mp3).  Learn about the candidates’ differing views on early voting (one of the few areas of substantive disagreement between them). Read the audit reports by the CT Citizen Election Audit Coalition, then compare the candidates’ statements about ballot access and integrity. And finally if you’re a Democrat (and if you’re voting in this primary you’re a Democrat) you should ask yourself which candidate is more likely to enhance the entire ticket in November. These treacly TV ads are solely for the purpose of building name-recognition—educated voters can and should ignore them. P.S. Re “the guitar thing”—Gerry Garcia is like Jerry Garcia, get it?

posted by: bill Saunders on August 2, 2010  4:52pm

I don’t know about any of you other registered voters out there, but my household has been recently plagued by phone calls from all democratic candidates for every state office this primary season. 4-6 calls a day.

Seems like there should be a more concerted effort to get the vote out.
This is where campaign funds go??—relentlessly pestering potential voters.  Might have to switch back to being unaffiliated.

posted by: Concerned Citizen on August 2, 2010  5:00pm

It is quite refreshing to see two political commercials that do not contain mud-slinging. The Merrill spot has more substance than Garcia’s; however, I agree with Mr. Berkowitz that both commercials are a little too simplistic and do not offer voters any worthwhile information about why either should be elected Secretary of State.  I think the job requires more than the ability to strum a guitar, or run the PTA. 

In fact an effective Secretary of State (such as Susan Bysiewicz has been) requires that the
business division be committed to providing prompt, efficient public service for the people and businesses of Connecticut.  This is a significant responsibility and requires an astute and savvy administrator with outstanding supervisory and leadership skills. The elections, voting and statistics divisions also require sound knowledge of CT’s various laws and how they should be administered; the total office demands outstanding people skills. 

It seems that neither Mr. Garcia nor Ms. Merrill takes the job too seriously.  It is surprising that a job that pays six figures ($110K) more people are not contending for it in 2010. Interesting!

posted by: ctkeith on August 2, 2010  5:52pm

I think both these ads and both these candidates make the case for having the position of Sec of State an appointment made by the governor and approved by the Senate.

posted by: Christopher on August 3, 2010  3:59am

Both ads are mindless fluff that is a bit insulting as a voter.  Even still, it is better than the negative ads filled with mixes of lies and half truths attempting to frighten people about anything.  Hopefully the positive themes will at minimum get more people to at least research the candidates.  I did and chose Garcia (via absentee).  The only I favored from Row B.

posted by: andymo on August 3, 2010  5:50pm

If you watch both ads carefully (or better yet, ignore the fluff and just read the text of each), you will pick up one meaningful difference.  The only substantive thing mentioned was by Garcia: early voting by mail. 

If I’m given nothing more on which to base my vote, Garcia gets the clear nod for this reason.

posted by: Ben Berkowitz on August 3, 2010  7:24pm

I ran into Gerry today and got to explain my comments further. It went something like this,

“Television is the beginning of the death of participation and an accelerator for apathy. I don’t know how any television commercial could encourage someone to get up from their couch as the medium begs you to do nothing but that.”

I’ve thought about this a little more and might have one suggestion if you were to create an ad campaign for secretary of State. If the main job of the secretary of state is to encourage voting and participation then the 30 seconds should be dedicated to why you should get off your couch and do that for whoever you want to vote for. Tell me why democracy works and how I can participate and that in the end it does not matter who I vote for as long as I vote. Tell me if I vote and everyone else does too we don’t need to worry to much about who our Secretary of State is because their job just got easier than flipping french fries.

End the message with a paid for by “insert candidate” and you have my vote.

posted by: Todd on August 4, 2010  8:00pm

Paul.. Looks like you are going to have to edit this a little bit.  Garcia HAS gone negative just a few days after you complemented both candidates for staying above all of this.

I commented on his video about why he felt the need to go negative with your article complementing the SOTS race and how they have kept it clean.. It was taken down seconds later.

The Clean Elections Program or Citizens election program isn’t all that CLEAN when you are using taxpayer’s mud to sling at your opponent.  I hope Merrill stays true to her word and keeps “civility in politics” during this primary. 

There has been a lot of mud and I was hoping that this was going to be the one primary that took the high road, but it looks like Gerry just stooped down to the level of a Fedele.  Using clean money to sling some mud.