(Watch the ad before reading further if you prefer to avoid “spoilers”).
Novick, who is in a sharply contested race for the the Democratic Senate nomination here in Oregon, is (obviously) disabled, but a generation or two ago he would have had to hide his disability to be a viable candidate — or his disability would have foreclosed him being a viable candidate at all.
This doesn’t mean that ablism is dead, any more than the current race for the Democratic Presidential nom means that sexism and racism are dead. But it’s definitely pleasing.
In other Novick news, he’s been endorsed by Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney. For many of my friends, that alone might be reason enough to vote for him.
(Curtsy: Debate Link.)
Neat. Especially the last bit. However, before the “surprise” (I’ve seen a few local ads featuring disabled candidates and they all have this sort of “surprise factor”, which is worth noting), I was struck by the overt masculinity of the ad- “vote for me, I’d be a good drinking buddy”. It could be politics as usual, of course, but I suspect the manly scenario was chosen because men with disabilities are often seen as weak or feminized.
Thanks for pointing that out Raechel, I was thinking the same thing.
OTOH, I do think Novick is willing to make fun of his “non-masculine” traits in ways that directly contradict them with the “traditional masculinity” (at least as it exists in politics), like here.
As someone who has put a lot of time into this campaign, as a volunteer, I’d like to thank you for posting it. The ad has been amazingly popular and has gotten Steve a lot of national “earned media,” which is vital when you’re running a campaign against a much better funded opponent.
As to the masculinity issue, I think the ad is addressing the idea we saw in the 2000 and 2004 elections where the Bush camp tried to portray their candidate as a “regular” guy and Gore and Kerry as pointy headed intellectuals who couldn’t relate to “average folks.” I read the ad is a critique of the question, “but who would you want to have a beer with?” (Not a great criteria for choosing someone who will shouldering some of the most difficult questions the government faces.)
Here’s an ad that proceeded the “Beer with Steve” ad. It’s a take off of the old game show, To Tell the Truth. Both ads were produced with Eichenbaum & Associates, the firm behind Senator Russ Feingold’s unconventional ad campaign.
Novick’s positions on various policies can be found here.