The Minnesota public shares a common disgust of it with the national public, and happened to find an outlet for this discontent in Ventura. The success of Hillsman's ads for Ventura illustrates another weakness in national electoral politics. Political consultants, including those who worked for Coleman and Humphrey, rely on shopworn advertising styles during campaigns, often featuring heavily negative messages. Indeed, ads in one state often seem virtually indistinguishable from ads shown in every other. According to Hillsman, it all goes back to the desire of consultants to make a buck.
Big buys mean big bucks for consultants.
Since certain ads have worked in the past, qualitative experimentation of the sort done by Hillsman is risky. Hillsman argues that spending limits might actually improve campaign ads by shifting the focus from quantity to quality. A third lesson for national politics from Minnesota is that third parties have no chance in national elections without campaign finance reform. True, Perot did break through at the presidential level, but only by spending tens of millions of his own dollars first. That's a high cost of entry.