All in the Family, Sort Of

Gail Collins
APRIL 4, 2014

Here’s the latest life lesson from the campaign trail: If you are, say, making a home movie about how great your family is, try to remember to use pictures of your actual relatives, and not random attractive strangers.

We bring you this important tip from South Dakota, where Mike Rounds, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, came up with a debut video in which he tells prospective voters that the rest of the nation “could learn a lot from the people of South Dakota.” Meanwhile, the viewer is treated to pictures of folks building houses, having meetings, playing with the family — doing all sorts of positive things that presumably exemplify the state’s wholesome lifestyle.

Unfortunately, it turns out that they are stock photos from parts unknown. Except we did learn that the fetching woman holding her pen at that meeting is actually in Paris.

“It was a matter of trying to be good stewards with our client’s budget,” said John Pohlman, an executive for the Rounds creative team. In South Dakota, the controversy has devolved into an argument about whether this piece was the first ad of the campaign or just something thrown casually together as a sort of experiment. But not a commentary on whether South Dakotans are photogenic! Be fair.

(More here.)