Jane Maddux, the Republican candidate for the Virginia Senate in the newly-configured 25th District, is presently running a pair of :30 TV commercials, taped recently in Charlottesville. Often seen wearing more business-oriented attire, her dress and manner in the commercials is quite soft - we are presented with a woman at the higher reaches of community service.

In one of the Jane Maddux commercials nine people in rapid succession, each shown close-up, affirm that they live in Charlottesville (one clarifies that we're talking about "Charlottesville, Virginia") and we then learn that each of them plans on voting for Jane Maddux. Of the people shown, most are middle-aged or above, most are female, and just one is non-white (he is also one of two clearly "younger"). Three men are shown, along with six women. One of the men is Spotswood Connelly, who, in support of Mrs. Maddux invokes the spirit of Emily Couric (he doesn't claim to have voted for Emily, just to have admired her).

The commercial ends with us viewing Mrs. Maddux standing with these people as a group, while a male voice tells us, "she's dedicated her life to helping others get more out of theirs. …"

In a second spot, Jane Maddux is seen standing outside a new house with a small group of people, next to a "Habitat for Humanity" sign. We then see her in a clinic-style reception area, and then in the lobby of Martha Jefferson Hospital's Cancer Center. The male voice reinforces this sequence: "From lending a hand building homes for the homeless … fighting for health care for those who need it most… leading the fight against breast cancer ... Jane Maddux ... ."

We then see Mrs. Maddux seated in a living room. She tells us that "Charlottesville is my home … for the past 25 years I've worked to give hope to those most in need …."

What about Habitat?

For about a year, she has been a member of the three-woman Advisory Board of Habitat for Humanity (with Elizabeth "Bitsy" Waters and Sally Thomas), serving as a spokesperson for the "Women Build" program. In this program, women undertake all of the tasks associated with building a residence.

Overton McGee, Executive Director of Greater Charlottesville Habitat for Humanity, characterizes Women Build as an extremely successful program. "It has done more to broaden support [for Habitat] in the community than anything else we've done," says McGee. "We've raised enough money to build one home a year for the next three years, and we expect to raise enough money in that time to continue [at that pace]."

We've tried to get a little more information about Mrs. Maddux's specific activities on behalf of Women Build from Kelly Eplee, Development Director of Habitat, but phone messages have not been returned.

Interestingly, recent position statements from the Maddux campaign set her priorities as: taxes (lower), education (state funding, school choice, education tax credits) and, in light of recent events, public safety (added resources for training police, fire and emergency personnel).

Yet, repeated requests for responses to questions about many key issues of the campaign (reproductive choice, growth and the environment, education, gun regulation) as well as amplification of her quoted positions have not yielded any response other than "we have a stack of these requests, and we'll answer them as soon as we can" from Dave Rexrode, manager of the Maddux campaign.

Building a 'Brand'

These commercials have been produced by Creative Media Partners of Alexandria, a small agency that specializes in political campaigns, with a client roster including mossback conservatives like Phil Gramm and Mitch McConnell, and which boasts on the "about us" page of their website that "we used Rush Limbaugh's character voice of Bill Clinton to encourage voters to send "another liberal" to Washington." And "In 1996, our ads taking on organized labor (on behalf of Congressmen Steve Chabot of Ohio and Todd Tiahrt of Kansas) received national attention for their "gritty" style."

According to Don Walter, president of Creative Media Partners, there's a sequence of things you have to do in an election like this, and the Maddux campaign's first need is to "establish the brand." That is, since Jane Maddux is not known by most of the potential electorate, the first round of television commercials will be used to build an image for her - in this case "by making reference to her record in the community," says Walter.

Asked about the demographics of the group shown in the "Voters" spot (largely female, white and older), Walter says that no particular thought was given - they filmed a large number of these brief endorsements and edited them together to get a fast-paced sequence.

More commercials advancing the brand are promised, and as to the folks who live in Charlottesville (Virginia) and who are going to vote for Jane Maddux, says Don Walter, "we'll meet these people again."

Getting votes

This is a local special election in the midst of war, turmoil and economic distress - and it is taking place during the highly-distracting holiday season. It's a short campaign. A general lack of acquaintance with candidates on the part of voters will shape the choices of what is advertised and how it is presented.

The district is said to usually vote 55 - 45 Democrat (Jane Maddux lost to Emily Couric, who was a popular incumbent, roughly 27,000 to 14,000 in 1999 in a differently-configured 25th District). The successful candidate must do fairly well in the more densely populated eastern third of the district.

So a Republican must go after right-leaning Democrats and middle-of-the-road Independents without alienating the conservative party stalwarts, who are thought to be more likely to vote, in a light turnout. And the focus clearly needs to be on Democratic-voting Charlottesville.

Jane Maddux has certainly taken the Republican line on taxes, but in the past has been more flexible on reproductive choice. Her advertising, at least so far, chooses to avoid issues entirely, other than implying support for volunteerism as a possible counter to government programs "helping those who need it most." Yet she has promised to run a clean and issue-oriented campaign. Is her current deemphasis on issues a winning strategy?

It would seem on its face that her commercial hammering the "I'm from Charlottesville" line might alienate the large number of voters in the district who are not from Charlottesville (many of them happily not). But the Maddux campaign may have decided that Creigh Deeds is so well established in the western sectors that those votes are not available anyway, especially to someone not from that region. And it implicitly positions Mrs. Maddux as "one of us" to Charlottesvillians - and by implication makes the point that Creigh Deeds is not. Where are you from, and what do you think of a politician in this sprawling district who draws such a small circle around herself?

There has been Democratic hand-wringing over the use of Emily Couric's name by the Maddux campaign (in Charlottesville we know well how everyone from Timothy McVeigh to Martin Luther King has invoked some aspect of Thos. Jefferson's legacy). What do you think of the use of Couric's name as a campaign tactic? (Dave Sagarin, November 30, 2001).