Scott Powers
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum is challenging thinking about what’s impossible in his first television commercial, being launched today with a modest buy that will ramp up next week.
Gillum’s 30-second spot, “What’s impossible?”, seeks to define him as someone who already has a record of succeeding against long odds, as the son of the bus driver who grew up to become Tallahassee’s mayor and win a lawsuit against the National Rifle Association. The ad also offers Gillum’s promises to increase public education spending by $1 billion, and to accept the federal Medicaid expansion.
Running the lowest-budget campaign among the five Democrats and two Republicans seeking the governor’s office this year, Gillum’s commercial touts that underdog status and explicitly asks those viewing it to contribute to his campaign to keep the commercial on the air.
“Is it impossible to come from nothing, to be outspent ten to one, and win?” he asks. “Share this, buy a TV ad and prove the impossible.”
His campaign is spending $60,000 now to put it on statewide cable, including on CNN and MSNBC, starting Wednesday, and said it would make a six-figure purchase to put it on broadcast TV in Tampa, Orlando and West Palm Beach starting next week.
Gillum faces Jeff Greene, Philip Levine, Chris King, and Gwen Graham in the Aug. 28 Democratic primary. The first three have poured millions of dollars of their own money into their campaigns and all four have campaign funds far in excess of Gillum’s, though Gillum also has a political committee that has raised a couple million dollars, mainly through out-of-state donors.
