This political race gets ‘sexy’ with ‘Braveheart’ and weight-loss ads

The TV ad starts like a weight-loss infomercial, but for politics.

“Now you can have that slimmer, stronger, sexier government that you’ve always wanted!” blares the spot for Republican lieutenant governor candidate Marty McClendon.

“Get rid of that unwanted bureaucratic flab.”

In another ad, McClendon — who said he is of Scottish heritage — is shown with his head imposed on the body of what looks like Mel Gibson from the 1995 film “Braveheart.”

“Freedom!” the ad declares, in an homage to the cry of Gibson’s character, the Scottish rebel leader William Wallace.

The bright colors and attention-grabbing images of McClendon’s TV spots couldn’t be more different from the biographical approach taken by his opponent, Democratic state Sen. Cyrus Habib of Bellevue.

In a recent TV ad, Habib addresses head-on that, if elected, he would be Washington state’s first blind lieutenant governor.

“When I lost my eyesight as a child, I learned to listen. Thanks to public schools, I went from Braille, to Yale, to the state Senate,” Habib says in his TV ad.

Habib said he hopes his ad shows that with the right opportunities — especially through public education — the state can help all Washingtonians overcome obstacles, much like he did.

From a purely practical standpoint though, Habib said his TV ad aims to explain to voters why he’s always wearing sunglasses, whether outdoors or indoors.

“A lot of people don’t know that I’m blind, and they see the sunglasses and ask, ‘Why is that jerk wearing sunglasses?’ ” Habib said.

“ … We knew we had to explain it.”

McClendon said his ads touch on his goals of making state government more efficient. One ad promises McClendon will be “Washington’s personal trainer for a better administration,” while the other talks of freeing Washingtonians from burdensome taxes and property regulations (that’s the “freedom” part).

Beyond that, however, the Gig Harbor pastor and real estate agent said his goal with his attention-grabbing ads was to stand out.

He hired his conservative talk show co-host Doug Basler, a Republican congressional candidate who also runs a TV advertising agency, to produce the 30-second TV spots.

“Doug said, ‘Lieutenant governor is not sexy,’ ” McClendon recalled Friday. “’Nobody knows about it, nobody cares about it. How do you make it sexy?’ ”

McClendon said he has his own kilt, but it wasn’t used in the making of his TV ad.

The job of lieutenant governor consists mainly of presiding over the state Senate, as well as filling in for the governor when he or she is out of state.

McClendon and Habib are looking to replace retiring Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, who has held the position for the past two decades.

This story was originally published November 5, 2016 at 8:19 AM with the headline "This political race gets ‘sexy’ with ‘Braveheart’ and weight-loss ads."