| No Images? Click here   Earlier this month Democrat Ralph Northam won the Virginia gubernatorial race. As with all political races, in the lead up to election day, a slew of political ads ran across local networks.But one stood out as going too far.In the ad, released Oct. 30, a diverse group of young children ― including a Latino boy and a Muslim girl in a headscarf ― flee a white man driving a pickup truck sporting a Confederate flag and a bumper sticker for Northam’s Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie.The brief video spot provoked attacks from right-wing media outlets who claimed Democrats were unfairly painting Gillespie and his supporters as white supremacists. But the ad struck a chord. Northam won by a comfortable margin, perhaps boosted by a spike in Latino turnout.HuffPost politics reporter Daniel Marans was curious about the ad and learned it was inspired by a true story.How did you come to this story?Late on election night a PR guy I know pitched me the ad. He suggested we write about how contrary to the conventional wisdom that the ad had gone too far, it actually increased Latino turnout and helped Democrats win. He said he'd connect me to Colin Rogero of 76 Words, the ad man who produced the spot.It was an interesting idea, but I'd need more evidence that Latinos had voted in higher-than-normal numbers to even make an argument about the ad's impact. I told him that in any event, I would need to revisit it in a few days because my hands were full with more time-sensitive post-election pieces. But the PR guy persisted and I finally agreed to a phone interview with Rogero a few days after the election. I figured I would just see what he had to say.What surprised you about the reporting?The entire back story was enormously surprising. I asked Rogero a few simple questions about how the ad came together and he nonchalantly revealed that he had based it on his own life experience. He had been chased by racist white guys in a pickup truck as a Latino teenager in a South Florida suburb. Rogero was not at all aware that this was the newsiest story to tell about the ad. The PR guy never mentioned it in his pitch; Latino Victory Fund didn't even know about it until I asked them.What happened to the original angle; that Latinos had turned out in higher numbers to vote?Since it is pretty hard to pin down the effectiveness of any political ad -- let alone one that was basically only on the air for a day and a half -- there's a chance that I would not have seen fit to write a story about the ad had it not been for Rogero's personal story. At the very least, my article would have been less interesting.What was most challenging about reporting it?It is a pretty straightforward story without any kind of complicated policy or legal loop-de-loops. But corroborating Rogero's account and fleshing out the details took some time. Rogero was able to put me in touch with his cousin who took in Rogero the day it happened.I also spoke to Cristóbal Alex, the head of the Latino Victory Fund. He had originally approached Rogero about creating an ad that included what happened at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The rally had given Alex nightmares, and he suggested Rogero incorporate it into the ad. Alex and Rogero's accounts of the ad matched up. In fact, the ad ended up featuring both real-life elements: a pickup truck chase and the children waking up from a nightmare.Is there anything else you'd like to add?Sometimes it pays to just entertain a pitch you are ambivalent about and see where it goes.I also wish I had asked about the ad's provenance when it came out. If more people knew the story behind it, I suspect they might have reacted to it differently.Love, |
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