Look that elections are held on May 28, that more than eight thousand municipalities are decided, also the councils and many autonomous communities. And see that there are parties of all kinds. But nothing is standing out more —for the worse— than the Reyes Maroto campaign.
His performance has been so poor on all levels that he is managing to turn Pepu Hernández into John Fitzgerald Kennedy. At least he conveyed authenticity.
If the different products of the Madrid socialist candidate stand out for something, it is because of their complete alienation from the time and space of the next polls. The different pieces that they are airing could be applied, practically without changes, to Reykjavik of 2003. Each of the parts looks like a loose graft, without a common root, which is why the whole ends up being so irrelevant..
From the big to the small, nothing is landed to smell like a neighborhood. Not even a timid scent of contemporary progressive eagerness is left behind.. missing skin. Everything is told with a language of hollow wood, without chicha and without soul. There is no life. To show this button, nothing more and nothing less than the central advertisement of your campaign…
We are going to transform #Madrid and we are going to do it together.
It is in our hands to open a new stage in this city and its districts, to place people at the center.
We have a program, we have the best team and we know how to do it.#VotaReyes #votaPSOE pic.twitter.com/njfZgOhPBC
– Reyes Maroto (@MarotoReyes) May 12, 2023
“We have a plan and we have a team.. We know what to do because we've done it before. But above all, we have enthusiasm and desire”. Topics and set phrases: nothing with saccharin. You can't say less with more words.
This team, which is one of those with the most resources in Spain, has made the worst spot in the first electoral division. It is not a specific failure, it is that there are no hits, it is that this campaign does not have a flash. The distance between the expectations that were inflated around Maroto's candidacy is being embarrassing next to his real competitive capacity.
And, meanwhile, the contrast with the ability of his adversaries is overwhelming.. What is emitted, both from his right and from his left, is incomparably better. In both cases there are more and less brilliant products, but it is seen that they respond to a general approach, the coherence between the different elements is recognized, also in aesthetics.
The Popular Party and Más Madrid, each one in their own style, each one towards their public and both assuming their own risks, are carrying out a professional display. It can not be any other way.
We are talking about a first class square, a city that does not forgive boredom, that punishes the absence of ambition, the downturn instead of going all out.
Whoever campaigns for the capital of the provinces in Madrid ends up, yes or yes, surpassed by the others. And that is exactly what is happening to Reyes Maroto.
That is an error that cannot be attributed to his partner Lobato. You may like it more or less, but no one can argue with your courage and that is already something, quite a lot actually. He also has a more curdled speech and you can tell that they are trying to generate something different, that they try to delve into his imagination. She wants to think big, she doesn't. We return to the speech of his campaign announcement..
“We have a plan”. Having a plan, offering a plan to the capital of the kingdom, consists of opposing a city model that has at least the same size as the one who governs and that far exceeds who competes with you for the leadership of the opposition.. But its offer is smaller than that of the PP and shorter than that of Más Madrid.
“We have a team” when one is the last resort on the bench because no one else wanted to accept the candidacy and, on top of that, when Sánchez himself refuses to support you in the campaign, there is a risk of demonstrating the loneliness of the candidate.
This weakness, which was always structural, was not resolved by expanding the political subject so that his campaign was the campaign of all Madrid residents.. The only way to avoid the impression of abandonment that she now projects was for Maroto to form part, from the beginning, of something bigger than herself.. They didn't think about it and now it's too late, we're already at the end.
“We know what to do because we've done it before”. Poisonous message in a territory that feels besieged by sanchismo, a dose of memory for the different attacks. Danger also because these words convey a lack of autonomy. Doing in Madrid what Sánchez has done before in Spain is not the most seductive offer for Madrid residents in general and for Madrid socialists in particular..
“But above all, we have enthusiasm and desire”. Desire? Is the Maroto team really using the concept, the very motto, of the Ayuso campaign in its central piece? How is it possible that no one has pointed out that this is a word that should not be used, that it was essential to find your own creative solution to transmit positive energy?
Illusion is an emotion that cannot be invoked or manufactured, nor does it arise by spontaneous generation. It occurs in special climatic conditions, after sowing and nurturing, after watering patiently. Nevertheless, despite everything, even when competing not to be third, as is the case, something close to illusion can be simulated if you gather experts who know what they are doing. Doesn't seem to be the case. Here is an advertising agency that is expensive because, seen what has been seen, it cannot have experience in the electoral market.
Campaign materials are cold and detached down to the most elementary details. The light and sound of the videos is from an operating room. On the graphic side, the typography remains foreign and the chosen photographic plane seems treasonously selected. The speech and the proposals that are reeling are from pitiminí. There's no emotion to protect. And no reason to grow together either.
Ultimately, the fault lies not with the technicians or the creatives, the responsibility lies with the raw material, with the campaign management that the candidate has chosen and also with whoever appointed her.. Only an alien could have thought that Maroto would be a good candidate for Madrid.