Kermit Carolina appears only momentarily and utters only one sentence in his new campaign commercial: a tag line stating he paid for video. Otherwise, he lets the camera — and his target voters — tell the story.
The story is about the power of the ballot, especially for young adult African-Americans.
Carolina is banking on young African-Americans — who don’t always show up in large numbers in political campaign polls — to help catapult his candidacy in next Tuesday’s New Haven Democratic mayoral primary. Click on the video to watch the 35-second video.
The video (click on the play arrow to watch it) shows a young man getting into a car to take care of pressing business. The unspoken sense is that he may be up to no good.
A young woman pulls up in a car beside him.
“What’s up?” she asks him.
“About to put in our work. You ready?”
Four friends end up putting in their work — by hitting a polling place to cast a vote.
That’s the message Carolina has promoted in his mayoral campaign: He’s banking on the support of African-Americans marginalized by the political or criminal-justice systems. (Read about that here.) Carolina’s campaign has in part become a crusade to involve that base more in New Haven civic life. Read about that here.
The video will not air on TV; the intent, as with much campaign content these days, is to have it go viral on video.
UpCrown Entertainment Group of Crown Street produced the video. Click here and here to read about that organization.