The Man Behind Ventura

Washington Monthly, June, 1999 by Alexandra Starr

Electing an improbable candidate without money or mudslinging

"Most political advertising is like shit," proclaims a flyer for Bill Hillsman's ad agency. "Ours is like manure ... it makes things grow." An unusual to put it, perhaps, but it's hard to quibble with the analogy. If you own a television, you probably regard political commercials as the equivalent to paying taxes: It's one of the prices you pay for living in a prosperous democracy. Hillsman, whose quirky ads helped catapult long-shots Jesse Ventura and Paul Wellstone into political office, has shown it doesn't have to be that way. "Instead of doing ads that drive people from the mom," says Hillsman, "We put together ads that get people to call out, `Hey, get in here! That ad is on again.'"

We can safely assume lots of Minnesotans were called into living moms to see Hillsman's cutting-edge commercials for former pro-wrestler Ventura. In one of the biggest electoral upsets of the century, a man who once displayed a penchant for glitter tights and feather boas defeated two of the Gopher state's most established politicians. It was the second time Hillsman's fingerprints were on a come-from-behind win: In 1990, he helped left-winger Wellstone depose incumbent Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, despite being outspent seven-to-one. Hillsman's handiwork not only helped get his guys elected; it also drew more people to the polls. In Jesse's gubernatorial election, 60.1 percent of Minnesota's eligible citizens voted, the state's highest turnout in a nonpresidential year since 1982.

In the process of contributing to improbable victories, Hillsman has laid waste to some of the basic shibboleths of political consulting. Most consultants put the cost of a political campaign in the stratosphere, but Jesse and Wellstone were elected on shoestring budgets. Political handlers say negative advertising can be the best way to energize your voter base. But Hillsman generally keeps his spots clean, and when he makes pointed criticism about the competition, he cloaks the message in humor, so the ad doesn't leave a bitter aftertaste. And rather than aiming to "activate" traditional voter groups in the Ventura campaign, Hillsman lured a new demographic to voting booths. Eighteen to 24-year-olds registered and cast ballots in record numbers in the 1998 race, despite the fact they are traditionally one of the groups least likely to vote.

While Ventura's victory prompted an interest in the wunderkind behind the commercials, Hillsman doesn't expect consultants to take a leaf from his creative, shoot-from-the-hip approach. "The same thing happened after the Wellstone campaign," he says. "I hate to sound like a fatalist, but the system is so rigged towards expensive, poll-driven advertising that I don't think things are going to change" Some political watchers, however, are less pessimistic. As Paul Taylor, executive director of the Alliance for Better Campaigns points out, the dirty little secret about political ads is that they are becoming less effective, while the cost of campaigns paradoxically keeps spiraling up. Hillsman's ability to win elections without bankrupting candidates could set a new standard in the business. "This is a form of communication that has to be invented anew," says Taylor. "Hillsman is showing it can be done a different way."

On the Cheap

"The only safe thing to take is a chance," reads the sign hanging in Hillsman's office. It's a motto he swears by for creative as well as pecuniary reasons. "If you don't do something out of the ordinary," he explains, "it's going to be expensive and ineffective" As Hillsman has demonstrated, a campaign can get more bang for its buck by placing a few attention-getting spots that pierce the public consciousness. Stick to ring-around-the-collar ads, and you'll have to spend a fortune blanketing the airwaves to get your message across. "There is no reason a presidential campaign should cost $20 million [the current number being bandied about as the price of entry]," says Hillsman. "It's ineffective communication that drives up the price that high."

The generic quality of political ads can be traced to the assembly-line approach that goes into their creation. The drill roughly follows these lines: Pollsters survey a candidate's name recognition and pinpoint issues on the voters' minds, then ad guys craft their commercials around the hot-button issues. The result, unsurprisingly, is ads that don't peddle a candidate so much as a collection of political stands.

As it turns out, Hillsman couldn't have followed the traditional blueprint on the Wellstone and Ventura campaigns even if he'd wanted to. Both candidates were so strapped for cash that Wellstone could commission only one poll, and Ventura couldn't even afford that. As far as Hillsman is concerned, that was just as well; he doesn't place much stock in pollsters. "Most consultants look at polls as oracles," he says. "But pollsters basically serve the function of researchers in ad firms. They're supposed to give you a basic sense for what's out there. They're not supposed to write the script."