Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but plagiarism is just lazy and contemptible

Eric Wnuck, one of the Republicans contending/pretending in their primary race to go up against Democratic Congressman Harry Mitchell next year, has released a new web ad, available at Republican blog Gila Courier here.

GC calls the spot "interesting," notes a couple of possible gaffes (no "paid for by" boilerplate, for example), and pushes folks toward Wnuck's campaign website.

What GC didn't talk about, however, was the spot's dearth of originality.

From the Facebook page of Seth Scott, friend, law student, and former staffer for Congressman Mitchell (hence his knowledge of a particularly relevent fact) (emphasis his) -
Arizona newcomer Eric Wnuck is running in the AZ-05 Republican primary, and earlier today released an I’m-an-everyman-themed Web ad. It features lots of folks saying, “I’m Eric Wnuck,” and attempts to leave viewers with the impression that he’ll a strong voice for all of us in Washington.

It’s a brilliant idea for an ad. But I liked it much better when I saw it three years ago, when it was aired by Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill.

Wnuck plagiarized his new spot, but not from a random party. Nope. This bright bulb lifted material directly from Mitchell’s own advisers.

Adelstein Liston, the firm that has produced all of Mitchell’s television spots, also produced the “I’m Melissa Bean” ad that Wnuck loved so much.
Wnuck's spot can be found here; the original spot from Melissa Bean can be found here. It should be noted that the Bean campaign was professional enough to include the required "paid for by" line.

3 comments:

just jen said...

Well, let's note that really... everybody managed to lift the line "I am Spartacus" from "Spartacus" the movie. Under the "Paid for by" line there should be some sort of homage to Stanely Kubrick, if not Howard Fast. Or hell, I might even settle for Kirk Douglas.

With that said, AZ's been in something of an intellectual drought, and now it appears originality and creativity is drying up. Has me thinking there's little point in sending someone up to DC to "change things up" when they themselves can't come up with their own material. Necessity is, after all, the mother of all invention. Well, at no other time has it been more important for our state to have genuine leadership. A necessity. And Mr. Wnuck's ad shows very little inventiveness.

Craig said...

Your point about Kubrick/Spartacus was well-taken, but it doesn't diminish my glee at the idea of Wnuck stealing the campaign ad idea from Mitchell's own advisers.

How was your holiday?

just jen said...

Holiday could have been better had the gov's house been t.p.'d. Funny story. I was watching the PHX news and the lead in went "Black Friday, blahblahblah, weather, blahblahblah, Governor's mansion t.p.d. Your local news is next."

Well. It was all over for me. Once I composed myself, I managed to get a text out that went something like "Anyone know where Ron Gould was last night?" while I waited for the news to finally get to the story. Well. About five minutes to the end, the story came on. It was the Colorado governor's mansion. So...then I had to send out yet another text saying I was wrong and blamed it on the hype channel 12 no doubt fanned. You KNOW they let the lead go on without specifying WHICH governor on purpose. I can't be the only one who was ready to declare a Thanksgiving miracle. Hell, I was ready to give MAD props to Gould.

How about your holiday? No MA snow to shovel from the sidewalk.