WTF?

As some of you may know, I had an interview a while back with Dan Mansell, candidate for Congress against Bob Etheridge. I extended the offer to the Etheridge campaign and got no response. I am a conservative, so my personal choice for election is Mansell. A few things have bothered me about his campaign, but this one in particular I will share.

The day we had the interview, it was explained to me by the young campaign manager how their campaign was going to "redifine a shoestring budget" and spoke about their $40K budget compared to Etheridge's $700K of money just from PACs. I offered some professional services to their campaign. I offered to make CD copies of the interview FREE, make the interview available online FREE, and make any radio ads for them FREE. I have done radio ads for over 15 years. I know what I am doing. I have a professional recording set up for broadcast quality recording for radio and TV. I still do narration and ads from time to time.

Today I was on the way home during the 6PM hour and heard a familiar voice on the radio start to talk about the failings of Bob Etheridge as a Congressman. I knew instantly that the ad was for Mansell. I also have communicated with the voice over guy in the past. He does a lot of work for my employer. Actually, I even have the same mixing board, sound card, and software that he uses as a full time voice over announcer. This man's voice saturates the Triangle market. I have nothing against him as a professional and individual, but he is over used in this market. Also, each person has a voice suited for certain types of ads, not every type of ad. He is often contracted for voice over work unfitting to his voice.

This ad was simply and non-descript. Plain. Boring. I offered to make ads FREE for the campaign. I have an hour of audio clips of the candidate I can use. I have years of announcing experience. Most of all, I am a conservative that volunteered to work for the campaign FREE.

I have a hard time with the concept of having a man sit across a table from you, telling you that their campaign is low on funds and they can't afford to do much yet refusing help that has been offered to them. I offered on several occasions to assist in a few different aspects of sound and web media. I NEVER heard anything in reply.

Maybe this is for the best. Mansell is going to get his ass kicked in the election in November. I have known this since day one. Still, I offered to help the cause. I like what Mansell stands for, but I can only wonder WTF??? The campaign manager cries about the low amount of funds but pays for crappy, boring ads when they could have had better ads FREE? Not to mention that I would have professionally recorded the auto dialer message that they used to call every residence. It was done by the campaign manager (I have not mentioned his name for a reason), I recognized the voice. By the way, he actually did a better job than the guy who voiced their radio ad. Still, I would have done the freakin' job for them FREE.