DENVER — The first television ad from Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, which starts airing statewide Tuesday, features a number of things that will feel familiar to those who’ve followed the governor for some time, from the location to the political mantra espoused therein.
The ad is shot inside the Wynkoop Brewing Company, which Hickenlooper founded a couple of decades ago, and shows the governor greeting customers and working the line in the kitchen.
Hickenlooper, who has built his political career in large part by leveraging his personal story, offers a 30-second voice-over narrative that touches on a few hallmarks of his brand: a businessman’s innate fiscal conservatism, a bartender’s indefatigable desire to send everyone away happy and a politician’s promise to eschew negative ads in favor of clever, memorable ones.
“Everything I know about governing I learned when I was laid off and started a restaurant,” Hickenlooper says as the ad opens with shots of him polishing the Wynkoop’s first floor bar and showing customers to a table.
“First, money’s always tight. So you make do with less. And there’s no profit in making enemies. It’s why I don’t do negative ads.
“Instead we’ve brought people together. We went from 40th to fourth in job creation with 200,000 new jobs,” Hickenlooper continues, as video shows coasters imprinted with the logos of some large companies the governor has recruited to the state — Arrow Electronics, Trizetto and Layer TV — dropping onto the bartop.
“We were proud of that — for about five minutes; because you’re only as good as the next meal you serve.”
Hickenlooper’s closing tag-line: “Climb higher.”
Clearly, Hickenlooper’s decision to use his bar in his campaign’s first ad indicates he’s not been scared away from his usual strategy by Republicans who have tried to turn his biggest strength into a weakness by defining the governor as the “state bartender” and criticizing him for being so eager to please all sides that he lacks the backbone to make difficult decisions.
The Republican Governors Association’s first ad starts with footage of Hickenlooper at the Wynkoop in July playing pool with President Obama.
The message: he’s a fun guy to shoot pool with but unwilling to make the tough choices required of governors.
The group’s second ad hitting Hickenlooper depicts him on a soundstage with a frosty lager in hand as he prepares to film a campaign commercial; it argues that his ads are cute but, again, his ambivalence and shifting stances on policy issues has misled voters.
Hickenlooper’s campaign, which has raised more than $4 million to date, locked up fall ad time a few months ago when rates were cheaper and is planning to run ads from now until Election Day — for the next eight weeks.
The campaign had initially planned to start running ads one week later but decided to go up on the air early to answer the RGA ads airing around the clock and likely in response to polls showing Republican Bob Beauprez either within striking distance or even ahead of the incumbent whose reelection was thought just months ago to be a slam dunk.
