I'm not a Witch!

This week, I have chosen to study the campaign ad above. This is Christine O'Donnell, the Republican candidate for the state of Delaware. She was up against the Democrat candidate Chris Coons in the 2010 midterm elections. She previously was against Joe Biden (now the Vice President) for senate in Delaware and lost in the 2008 elections.

This ad for her campaign has become extremely popular and ridiculed and parodied. She starts off with the statement "I'm not a witch." This may seem very odd, if you don't know the particular story behind this. There was a clip shown on Real Time with Bill Maher, where he showed Christine O'Donnell taking part in his previous show Politically Incorrect, and she explained she dabbled in witchcraft at a young age. This was shown on his show, and it has been picked up by many other TV show hosts, like Jon Stewart, where she has been ridiculed.



The style of her campaign ad though, is very simple, a medium shot of her explaining that she is not different to the person who is watching it (even if she did dabble in witchcraft). She explains that she will do what they would do in Washington. She would reflect the people's opinion of the public in the government. The ad is very short, and seems to bring across the message that generally every candidate promises.

Though this campaign ad is very clearly, her covering what she did when she was younger, and the fact that she was exposed by a TV show host/comedian. We are in the age of the Internet, and young politicians have to be very careful in what they have posted on the Internet as a younger person, or what they have done that can easily be found out by a few Internet searches. In a way, making up for the past mistakes, can really damage a politician's career, and this is a prime example, as Christine O'Donnell is trying to win this campaign yet has to spend time and money on creating this ad we see above us.

Unfortunately for Christine, she lost again this year, to Chris Coons the Democrat candidate. Christine got 40.0% whilst Chris Coons won by 56.6% of the vote. So overall the Democrats held their senate in Delaware this year.