The November 2024 election is behind us. More significantly, the public's collective anxiety about the avalanche of television and streaming advertising has abated. So Kansas reflector is taking a retrospective look at a half dozen TV spots that help tell the story of this election cycle. Candidates worked desperately to convince voters they were ready to answer the issues of greatest concern. There were claims possibly serious about the value of bipartisanship. There was boasting about the work of constituent affairs. Old social media posts came back to haunt and a new word, greedflation was tossed about. And of course, I guess all campaigns need a little bit of it. There was a bit of cursing to peel back the onion of these ads. Is Bob Beatty, a professor of political science at Washburn University. He's collected what I think is the biggest archive of Kansas political commercials ever assembled. Welcome to the reflector.
Great to be here. Tim,
good deal. So tell me if I'm wrong before we get into some of these ads, it seemed like there were more, at least Kansas legislative TV spots aired in 2024 in the past cycles. Is that true? Do you have any sense of that?
You are 100% correct. Not only is this a record, it's breaking the old record by multiples of percentage points. This is hundreds of legislative TV ads where, in the past, it would be a big year if there was maybe 20 to 25 In fact, I'm still downloading. I'm going into over 200 and I'm still downloading. A few
signs of this approach. In the future, you think as long as there's money available, they'll do it.
I think it's, it's been, it's been increasing for years on TV and with streaming, that is now a new there's more eyeballs watching these streaming services. So now the the parties and the candidates can can go after people not only just watching regular television, the local news, but all those streaming services. And you notice these ads are 15 and 30 seconds, so they are like old TV ads, but now they're on the streaming services,
which is more nimble. You know, there's this thing where people would send out these postcard mailers, but or have radio ads, but these are TV spots tonight. Does it make you more nimble? Because you can just go in and cut another ad tomorrow, if you respond to your opponent.
I think the especially this cycle this year, these ads were very nimble. They were reflecting the issues that were on people's minds. And to me, they looked like they were heavily based on focus groups and polling, the way that the issues were approached in these acts, Governor Lord
Kelly had a political action committee. She tried to weaken, or get rid of the super majority that Republicans have in the Kansas House and Senate. That fell flat, but there was a lot of PAC money from the right and the left and in this cycle, yeah. And
you know, this is a Republican state, Kansas, and when Laura Kelly, and also we'll talk about Sharice Davids to the powerful and elected Democrats in the state, when they run for office, they can go toe to toe, money wise, with the Republicans. But in on the legislature. Of course, there's a super majority, and there's a lot more money on the Republican side, and we really saw it. Whereas a Democrat may have run or a Democratic PAC, 234, ads, there's many Republicans this cycle that PAC ran 10 ads for them true.
Okay, Bob, can you just take a minute and set up this ad that from Sharice Davids, and kind of, kind of set the groundwork for us
Sure. Sharice Davids is a Democrat. She's representing the third district up in northeast Kansas, and Republicans in Kansas, like some Democrats in democratic states, they'd like to win every single race. They'd like to win every single congressional district in Kansas. So they redistricted the district that Sharice Davids represents. It's already a republican district. It got a little more Republican meaning registration, but Therese Davids has kept winning that district. And so it sort of begs the question, how does she do it? And I actually show this TV ad to my classes to show students, how does someone who is their party is a minority in a district? How do they win that district? They do it by addressing the concerns of that district in a bipartisan fashion,
the price gouging Prevention Act, it's a mouthful. It's meant to put more food on your table and keep more money in your pocket. I'm Sharice Davids. Increased grocery prices sometimes with less in the package are hurting Kansas families. It's called greedflation, and I'm working to stop it. I approve this message from stopping price gouging to capping drug costs like insulin at 35 bucks. Helping Kansans cope with high prices is my highest priority.
All right, as you heard, Charisse Davids tackled two issues that I think were really relevant to voters. She went after the cost of food and consumer price spending, and she's walking through a grocery store in this ad. And the other thing she touched on is the high cost of prescription drugs, two things that really resonate across the spectrum, and it seems had an appeal with voters. I think this time,
yeah, you have a good eye Tim, because I think it is important that she's in the supermarket, she's killing people, to think about this. Now, remember, though she's in the party that's been in power in the White House, so there are going to be Republicans maybe in her district to think, Wait, you're in the party. That's power. You're responsible for this. But she's cueing that, and that first, that first impression by the viewer will be to blame her. But she comes right out and says, here's what I'm doing about it. And she does. She mentioned something that, to be honest, I never heard from Kamala Harris or Joe Biden in the presidential race, which is, I know inflation is a big deal, and we're going to tackle, at least try to tackle one, one aspect of it, which is corporations that are taking advantage of it a populist tone, let's, you know, don't let Donald Trump, you know, take 100% of all the populism. That's the idea. And so I just thought it was a brilliant approach to inflation. Rather than saying a general, oh, we're going to do something about inflation. No, it's
interesting. Twice in that short 32nd ad, she says price gouging. She says businesses, corporations are out there charging excessive rates for goods and services that they shouldn't
well. And of course, when we during the inflationary period, at least, I went to a supermarket and everything was up. But what was the answer? Oh, supply chain issues. Really, for every single product in my Dillons, it's supply chain. No, it's corporations saying we can get away some of them, we can get away with raising the prices right now and blame it on the supply chain issues. She effectively realized that and said, you know, some of these companies are making record profits. I wonder if they're just
drafting behind the supply chain excuse. I like this ad because it has her in it. It's her talking directly to the voters, potential voters. And it's not just this booming voice from somebody afar who has this great TV voice, and could tell me the way things are. This is actually from her mouth. The next ad we're going to look at is from Ron Estes, and he takes a similar tact. So Ron Estes US Representative from Wichita. He's won election several times. I don't really feel like Esau Freeman, his Democratic opponent, really threatened him. In fact, you know, Estes won by a two to one margin. So Estes, Estes tries to show us that he really cares about his constituents. You want to help set this one up,
yeah, and I like TV ads that are personal, that and also are not cookie cutter, and you write like you said, not that booming voice, the, you know, the voice of God, that the announcer voice. And are clever, and that's what Ron Estes has. And he doesn't really need to run TV ads. He was he could do nothing, sit on the couch and watch TV the entire election, and he still would have won. So for him to actually put some time and effort into an interesting ad, I do give him credit for. So
let's go ahead and listen to Ron Estes, Hi, Ron.
Hey Ron. Hi everyone. Can you get my son's passport sorted?
I came here the right
way with my visa. We're
having trouble with Social Security. Again,
it's in process. Thanks, Ron,
that's fantastic. Thank you. Thank you so much. Milk, eggs,
ooh. Tomorrow's crash day. All right, dear. I'm Ron Estes, and I approve this message because I work for you, and sometimes Susan, of course,
now I know people can't see the ad, but what's going on there is three people call Ron Estes on the phone, and one of them has a concern about his son's passport. One has a visa issue, and an elderly person has social security problems, and they call him, and with a quick call to Ron Estes, not one of his staff, quick call to Ron, they get all their problems solved. And so one the passport guy says, that's fantastic. Thank you. And the visa guy said, it's in process. Thanks, Ron. And then the social security issue is, thank you so much. And then it shifts to. Susan Estes, his wife, who's a state Kansas House member, and she's in the kitchen cracking some eggs. Got Eminem's a bag on the kitchen counter there. It's like she was doing a product placement for Eminem. But she goes, Oh, tomorrow's trash day. I think she's making cookies. And then Ron flashes to Ron, and he's sitting in an office, and he's got a chalkboard behind him, and he's adding milk and and eggs to his agenda, and said, All right, dear. And then that's when he says, You know, I approve this message, and I work for you. So what you like this ad? I think it's a public servant angle. Yeah, I
like it because, actually, it's a little known fact, to be honest, that you can call your congressperson or US senator, and they will actually help you with a number of things, regardless of what party they're in. And so he's in this interesting position where he knows he's going to win, which means he can do something like this, because we so often, all we see is ads attacking your opponent and everything. This is really a public service ad, and it should be run in a non election year. I've had to call a congress person over the years. I don't care what party they're in to help me with a passport issue. It's also just clever. And you know, Jerry Moran and others who were in safe seats used would run ads when they were House members. And there's a practical side to it. Tim, I hate to be maybe it's cynical, but it could set him up to run for an office down the road, whether it's governor or US senator, just because he's generating some very positive feelings about himself there. Yeah,
nobody wants to remember those attack ads, but you can remember maybe that. Ron, oh yeah, Ron, he's the, he's the guy that he fixes problems, you know, we send him to TC, and he's a fixer, okay? The third ad we're going to look at is quite a bit different. Of State Representative Jason Probst, a Democrat from Hutchison. He's been a reasonably progressive legislator, and I think the Republicans very much tired of him, so they recruited a candidate. That candidate moved to Reno County, and lo and behold, he people really liked him. And I have to think that the mailers going into the district and the TV ads had something to do with a newcomer, Carla sweeley, who actually prevailed by 290 votes, 52% to 48% Bob, you want to set up this ad. It's unusual, yeah, it
was a very, very close election. I mean, yeah, right, under less than 300 votes. And you know, again, Sharice Davids is a Democrat in a republican district. That's a Congressional District. This is a House District, much smaller. Jason Probst is a Democrat way out in Republican dominated Hutchinson and what he was the subject of Tim were an inundation of mailers and radio and TV ads attacking him for essentially being a radical liberal. And so his response, I just liked his response, because it was so honest and so clever and just straightforward. And also it does feature a curse word, but also a rare thing as well, a candidate holding a pistol.
Yeah, pistol is, it looks it's a gigantic handgun. I just didn't know they made him that large. So let's hear, let's let's listen to Jason probes, tell us why he needs to get reelected. I'm
Representative Jason props. I'm standing here with my truck that I'm not trying to ban, getting ready to go shoot these guns that I'm not trying to ban not spend a lot of time thinking about things I want to force you to do. You're hearing a lot of things about me this election season, but there's one thing I want you to know my opponent and the dark money group supporting them are all foolish. I'd appreciate your vote on November 5.
Yeah. Okay, so the curse word got beeped out here. Maybe the broadcasters did that, I'm not sure, but he used the word to describe his critics. It's the word commonly associated with a product of going to the restroom, and so Probst is standing out there by his truck in the middle of nowhere. There's a soybean field behind him, and he's, he's got a flannel shirt on a t shirt, and you know, he's the window is down in the truck, and he's standing next to it on the driver's side, and he starts talking. And he talks about how, basically, I'm not banning gas guzzler trucks like the one behind him, and I'm headed out to go shoot guns. And he reaches down into the seat of the truck and pulls out a a handgun that looked kind of looked like a howitzer, and not trying to ban guns either. So he's trying to say he's he's not a liberal weenie. And then he criticizes his. And the dark money groups that spent a lot on his campaign, I have to guess that in your library, Bob, there are not a lot of ads in which people are wheeling a firearm,
not Democrats, although Kris Kobach, I believe there's one where he wields a giant AX, but also a firearm, and there's some other Republicans. It does.
It is a memorable image, yes,
but this one I just what I again, what I really liked was he addresses what's going on in the actual campaign, which was this onslaught of negative ads that were up against him and him trying to say that he's, he's one of them. He's, he's a member of that community. And he almost made it again at less than 300 votes, and if he could. But it also shows this election from the National all the way down to Kansas, that lot of candidates, even if they were liked by many people within their district, or US Senate or wherever in another state, the the turnout of of Republican voters, You know, really was against them, in a sense, who are, who are only coming out for that election, and may weren't, maybe weren't even that familiar with their elected representative that well,
yeah, the point of this ad was to say, I'm not too extreme. I'm not too liberal for you. And I think using the word shit in an in an ad is very complimentary to the way people in rural America have a tendency to talk. It's not an unusual word. And so I actually thought there was an affinity there the flannel shirt, the truck, the language that might be actually quite politically savvy.
Yes, I have said, in many ways, this was the best ad that I'd seen. And my immediate thought was that Jason Propst could be a very appealing candidate for Democrats on a larger scale, because this, again, was a small district in an incredibly heavily Republican district. I mean, plus 20, maybe, or something registration put him in a district a little bit like Sharice Davids in a sense that it's a little bit closer. You know that maybe only Republican advantage of eight to 10 and a plain, spoken, spoken, honest, you know, way of approaching people like probes. This showing might be very appealing. Okay,
so we're now going to go to two ads that are actually from the same Manhattan, Kansas house district race. Oh boy, yeah, two kinds of doozy. We're going to start with the anti Kim Zito. She's a Democrat ad that really, really emphasized, if you're going to go into political life, you might want to be careful about what you post on social media. And it's difficult when we play this ad, because there's an intro from the voiceover, and then they just type out, you can't actually hear it. I think they type out what she said on Facebook from over the last four years and so. So, for example, she there's, there's a post about making fun of the national debt. Is it really a concern? She, she actually typed out the words defund the police. This one's astonishing. I want to see the Catholic Church go extinct. And then she dropped the F bomb and directed that angst at Kentucky, Texas, South Carolina and Iowa. Really not sure. The reason that do you want to say more we're going to play, we're going to play the ad and just let everybody understand there's kind of holes into in it, because some of the messaging is just tight.
It's a very effective ad, I think, as you're describing it, because in the way that it's put together, it's just very visually smart. But also, you know, Donald Trump is Donald Trump. He is, I would still argue an anomaly. He's successful, and he does swear, and does all sort of, you know, interesting things. But to your point that doesn't always apply to people, other politicians, and yes, social media can really hurt you in a political campaign.
So let's go ahead and play this.
We've all said things online we regret. But have you said you.
Kim Zito, extreme, radical, vulgar, the wrong choice for Manhattan.
Wow, you're right. I think that's a super effective ad, and I'm not sure matter. Anything else matters. I think a lot of people wouldn't want to vote for somebody who's saying those things.
No, as I said, Donald Trump is the exception to that, and what happens on both sides, Democrat and Republican, is teams of paid, you know, party officials go go digging into candidates, social media and criminal record. If there are some criminal records, they're passed all the way back to their college days, looking for things that they can in order to make an ad like that. So any younger extraordinary.
In that instance, you only go back to 2020, right, and who knows what she did when she was a youngster, like, gosh,
well, the and of course, this has happened on the other side when we talk about her opponent. So this race was actually full of controversies like this, right? So very
well, we're going to go now in this same Manhattan House District to Angel Roser, who actually won this contest. She's a Republican, and she had, she does not come across as as Miss Maga, I mean, but she had her own controversy there. She put information out that she had already graduated from Kansas State University, and I guess she had not formally completed her degree yet. So it was a bit controversial there. But it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an attack ad against her opponent. And what did you think of this one?
Well, this one for this is a pro Angel Roser ad. So you want to, you could
say it that way. I think the first line is, my opponent is the face of extreme partisan. Well, that's true. I mean, so right, but largely it's about, you're not wrong. She's a feel good candidate, yeah, but, oh, by the way, she
starts it off that way, exactly right. My opponent is a heck yeah, but yes, but I'm but I'm not. And really it's, it's a feel good ad on her side, and what she's going to do, see you alluded to this controversy over K State, which is actually to embrace K State and make and personalize the ad at the very end, which I really appreciated, she's reminding
people she's the case Stater, all right, let's go ahead and play This one. This is Angel Roser.
My opponent is the face of extreme partisanship in our community. Our problems are not partisan yet. So many are focused on scoring political points. I am a common sense leader. I'll put our families and community over partisanship any day, every day, because when we work together, the reasonable solution isn't going to be red or blue. It's going to be a little bit purple. My priority is you and what matters most to your family.
Yeah, her the lettering on on her ad saying showing her name is in purple. So she's obviously trying to pull some of that purple power her way.
She also winks, which, of course, listeners can't see. But the wink is a gamble, because Sarah Palin did it and got mocked for it years ago. But here, I do think it works. I would advise against going with the wink too often and thinking about using it, but in this case, she pulls it off.
And so the extreme partisanship she's getting at us, I guess Kim Zito, she has said in her campaign she was frustrated by the overturning of Roe v Wade So and she was an opponent of the Kansas constitutional amendment, and that would have perhaps led to further restriction on abortion. Interestingly, John Carlin was Zito treasurer. I thought that was interesting, but the scandal about ms Roser not yet graduating from college didn't seem to matter. And I think that was an open seat, so
that was very interesting to kind of compare the approach of those two candidates in which you get there, since listeners were able to to hear the ad against her opponent Kim Zito, is the strategy of the Republicans in this election here, which is run an attack ad against the Democrat saying they're extreme and radical. Then, you know, spend a certain amount of money on that. Then spend a certain amount of money, a like minded money, maybe on a positive ad of the Republican, a very reasonable Angel, rosar, you know, oh, my goodness, my opponent is, you know,
we have the pack doing the attack right, and then we have the actual candidate. Well,
no, saying it's still the pack paying for it, but Right?
The candidates have paid for both, but the ad for her right? Her look will say angelic, exactly. Nicely done. So Okay, we're gonna look at one more ad, also interestingly done by the House Republican committee their pack, and it's for an incumbent Republican Sandy picker Wichita. She was elected in 2022 and her approach is is, is to try to characterize the troubling aspects of modern politics. She beat Veronica Gillette, a Democrat, by 180 votes out of like 9000 cast. So this was a very close race. And I think you put a bad ad out there, and it can cost you a race when you're talking about 180 votes. Bob,
right? And I, I wanted to talk about this ad because it's, it's really just represents the strategy of the Republicans, which, and the house, Kansas house, which was obviously successful. They picked up seats. They didn't lose the seats that George Kelly wanted them to lose. So this, this strategy was successful, and this ad is very emblematic, at it, of that strategy. So what you'll hear is a strategy that went across the board for dozens of races. Okay, here's Sandy picker.
We've all seen the stories about a broken system political fighting and bitter partisanship. I believe there's a better way. I worked with both parties to increase funding for our schools and special education. Joined Governor Kelly to make child care more affordable for working moms. And as a former nurse, I'll never stop fighting to improve health care for women and children in need. Together, we've proven that solutions begin when partisanship ends.
So this happens a lot. Candidates who want to appeal to the middle will not put their partisan affiliation on their yard signs or on their ads. And so this is really a Republican incumbent in the legislature acting like she's a Democrat. These are policies for an independent. Yeah, an independent? Yeah, yeah. Something out of out of the GOP. And
it worked. It worked. Here's the here's the, would I pick your word here? Irony for some brilliance if you're on the Republican side, blasphemy if you're on the Democratic side. Here it is, because here the context is, Republicans in the House wanted to keep a super majority. That means they have a two thirds majority, which allows them, if the Democratic Governor vetoes a bill, they can overturn her veto, and if a party has that ability to him, obviously, technically, they don't have to consult the other party at all. They don't even have to speak to them. So there you're there'll be no partisan discussion or rift because you simply don't speak to them. You can just turn your back and say you don't exist
by virtue of her winning and her peers, there will be actually less bipartisanship.
So the argument of the ad is that having separation of powers, in which the two parties, you know, one can veto, and then they have to get together and negotiate a compromise between the two parties, that that is something bad, that it's bad to have, essentially what the founders set up, which was separation of powers, and then, you know the clash of ideas, that it's much better to have a one party system in which then you're not going to have partisan, quote, unquote bickering. Now, it wasn't couch that way. It was not she says, You're just a cynic. She says, she says, Oh, I worked with Governor Kelly, and I worked with the Democrats on these issues, which is true, but the implication is that she will then go in and work continue to do it on tons and tons of issues. Maybe she will do we think she will.
Tim, maybe the reporters should keep an eye on her, especially in the 25 well, maybe
on all these ads where these House members and Senate members said they're sick of bipartisan bickering and we'll work with the other side. Yeah, let's, let's see if that's what they want to do in the upcoming because in the upcoming session, at least, you know, hold them to their word. Well, Bob, I
wish we could go through more ads. We didn't really have the time to do that, but I appreciate you so much for keeping the historical record of these commercials. Because to go back and see Mike Hayden with a side burn down to his chin and standing in a corn field is pretty precious. I got to say, yeah,
you can go to chaos politics.org for the over two, maybe 2000 ads that are on there now.
So anybody can go look at their ads. There's a whole index of them, and you can just click on the ad and get your flash from the past. So that's right. Bob Beatty, thank you for joining us today. Thanks for keeping the ads and appreciate you all listening today. Yeah, great to be here. You.