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ABQ mayoral candidate Richard Berry's TV ad "Turn the Page"
In his latest TV ad, Albuquerque mayoral candidate Richard Berry labels himself “impeccably honest,” but a photographic sleight of hand in the ad appears to exaggerate the length of time Chavez has spent as mayor.
In the ad, a book is opened to a page with a photo of a much younger Mayor Martin Chavez, next to “12 years as mayor” plus the year ”1993” in bold letters. But the photo is actually from the 1980s.
At one point in the ad, a suit-and-tie Berry looks every bit the savvy businessman as he sits at a conference table ticking off points on his fingers as employees dutifully take notes.
Narrator: “Richard Berry for mayor. Husband, father, successful business man, called impeccably honest.”
Chavez, circa his days as a state senator in the late 1980s
Visual on the screen: “IMPECCABLY HONEST.”
But rewind a few seconds and there’s a sequence that would appear to contradict the candidate’s self-description.
The ad opens with a book labeled “Albuquerque” appearing on the screen and the narrator saying ominously:
“Twelve years. Some good, some bad. Just time to turn the page.”
And the visual on the screen is the book opened to a page with a photo of a much younger Mayor Martin Chavez on one side – dark hair and a lot of it. And on the other, “12 years as mayor” plus the year ”1993” in bold letters.
Chavez, circa the present day
The problem here is that the Berry camp decided to use Chavez’s official New Mexico Senate photo dating back to the late 1980s, instead of his official 1993 mayoral portrait in which Chavez is already a grey-haired mayor.
In the ad, the book’s pages quickly turn through several more years and photos of Chavez. The last one stops at 2009 and features a much grayer, balding Chavez.
This photographic slight of hand would appear to exaggerate the length of time Chavez has spent as mayor.
Berry faces Chavez and Richard Romero in the Oct. 6 election
Or maybe the ad’s creative director would defend it as merely underscoring the too-many-years-as-mayor meme with fetching visuals?
There’s one more related, interesting detail from the ad for Berry, the race’s newly minted front-runner according to the Albuquerque Journal poll results released yesterday.
Underneath “IMPECCABLY HONEST” in the ad, the citation for it in much smaller letters reads: “Radio host impression of Berry, 6/7/09.”
Does that pass for impeccably vague?
