These ads demonstrate what we call production values. This is most obvious with the second ad. It's a joke that comes at you several times so that by the end, you see it coming.

But then you see Ned. I submit that Ned is more conservatively dressed in both spots than usual. Solid tie, a light red to draw the eye away from the busy scene, white shirt, conservatively cut dark blue suit that makes him look thinner. His hair seems to have been combed down or cut slightly. His facial expression is limited to his brows, really.

This is the counterpart of Ned's putting the "I approve this message" first, which is good because it (the self-endorsement) normally blows some of the effect of ads when at the end. In that shot, Ned is seen from the waist up, and I think the thing you notice is that he is frowning. His face, usually so animated, is dead except for the slight expression of anger in the brows.

When he walks forward against the screen of the brick wall, gesturing simply, finally spreading his hands to frame his question, we see him full figure. The angry expression from a slightly greater distance is softened to seriousness and even annoyance at the craziness of voting for Lieberman.

Ever been to Meriden? There are plenty of walls painted like that. That tagger logography says something to people. The typography is catapulting the propaganda. It's more ambiguous than you think. I'm not sure I can snap analyze all the elements there.

I'm going to say that the first ad also is subtler than you guys have yet perceived. Ok, the kid looks pretty stupid at first. I'd be interested to know where that statue of Lafayette stands - I bet someplace a lot of people in CT know well. The ad lingers over that square. Yes, you feel more sympathy for the kid when he pulls his hood up in the rain. There's a New Englander subtext here, a Sloane Coffin subtext, a stubborn Yankee. You see the boxes of papers at the kid's feet. The other names, yes, but also what you always see kids that age with, and what you want to see them with, and for several more years, please.

This ad references the draft. If the Iraq War lasts so long, mothers think, this kid might have to go.

Both the first and second ad lose the "chorus of insurgents", the so do we singers. The kid is the last one, if you like. Although the first ad does still have the I-approve-this-message at the end, this is another innovation, because only at the end do we realize that Ned has done his own voiceover, right down to referring to himself once in the third person. His face appears right after "more war" in reference to Lieberman, and again his expression is studied, brows furrowed in smoldering indignation - but NOT TOO MUCH, because the persona - not the position set, the TV Gestalt - of Lamont was too young, too dark-color shirt, too toothy smile, slightly bugged eyes that make him seem rather wild-eyed even though he is not, hair too young, sleeves too rolled up.

They rubbed a little gray in his hair, made him look relaxed and thinner instead of springy and charged up. Clinton said to Dean, you gotta transcend insurgency and become Presidential. In these ads, Ned appears Senatorial. I earlier thought Ned would be well-advised to say, Joe brought home the bacon once, but he can never do it again. The second ad went a step further, saying that it's crazy to think Joe can bring back those manufacturing jobs.

No more charged up Ned, no more bubbling Peanut Gallery. Those images did their work.

I don't know what effect these two ads will have. I don't know about timing these things' release. But if all of that is right, I would predict a strong plus, as strong as any you could get from just ads. Why? Because of the rich texture. This is no filmed bio or position list on bullet points. No chyron! Think of that! I agree that there is probably one crash, and the tags are post-production, but that is so different from having the letters come across the screen view. People don't understand how much people hate crawls and chyron text anyway. It's competition for your eyeballs. The ads are given to what they show, and instead of brutalizing us with logo/pic, logo/pic, Ned frames them. In his up-front "approve this message" for the second spot, he is standing in front of the same brick wall - almost Joe Friday-like. Then, host of his little show, he closes the show like Serling, sort of. Only his voice is heard, except for the muttering of the driver whose face appears to be hidden and/or blurred out.

The little touches in the first ad - the indication that it would take days to read all the names of the dead, the felt threats like the rain and the traffic, the movie-opening "classic" feel of the square - have this texture as well. I say again I bet a lot of people, and maybe a whole lot of students, frequent that square. But it is their mothers who thought they were safe there.

This kind of a commercial is even better than the VoteVets ads. Both very very good, but this kind creates a persona. In this case they had to inflect and change a persona that had not made the sale with Nutmeggers yet.

I couldn't be more pleased for the Lamont campaign. I hope it will flatten Joe. I would trade any seat for Joe, heck, Tom Delay could come back (he's kinda fun really) but Joe is no joke. If he wins, it will be the worst thing that could possibly happen to Connecticut. The national wave might swamp Joe. If it does, though, these commercials gave people a reason to go vote for Ned, even though they were in a sense negative IN TEXT. In image, they were positive. They positively inflected Ned's image, making him more sober, older, a better looking Senator on TV than Joe, even - because in a very real sense that is all Lieberman has been selling, his Senatorialness, which is no different than Rumsfeld's "honorable people are looking into these things".

I hope we will see more commercials that are less message and more narrative, less jarring television. I know a lot of you guys like to talk about "making points" in ads, but it is far better to make television.