If you haven’t seen this independent expenditure attack ad against the Democratic candidate for Congress in an Atlanta-area district, Jon Ossoff, you should take a look.
Yes, it’s fake—fake people saying that San Francisco loves Ossoff and is funding him. It’s a century-old technique (employed famously in the 30s by Hollywood types who had phony hobos praise gubernatorial candidate Upton Sinclair).
But does running against San Francisco really draw blood? Perhaps only in one way, by tying Ossoff to Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco’s congresswoman. Pelosi has presided over a decade of national party losses, and should leave national leadership, if not her seat, to yield to a new Democratic leadership.
But the rest of the ad hardly seems to work. San Francisco looks great in the ad (and a lot better than just about anywhere in greater Atlanta). The people talking look like nice, young, diverse, young people. Are such cityscapes and people a real turnoff to suburban Atlanta GOP voters? Atlanta is a big, global city, with the nation’s busiest airport. It might wish to have San Francisco’s problems, with the exception of housing prices and the Giants bullpen. And heck, the actors in the ad could be the kids of those GOP voters.
I wonder if San Francisco has lost its power as a bogeyman. Even in this negative ad, It seems less a place to fear, and more a place to which to aspire.