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Kathleen Rice Portrays Tough Image in First TV Ad

By DNAinfo Staff on August 19, 2010 1:38pm

By Jill Colvin

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — With sound effects, fast-cut shots of the Manhattan skyline and city streets and images of police, Long Island Attorney General Kathleen Rice's first TV ad looks like an episode of "CSI." And the message is clear: She's tough.

"If anyone thought Kathleen Rice would be a pushover as Long Island's first woman district attorney, they were wrong," a gruff male voice says in the ad, titled “No Pushover."

So far, Rice is dominating the field, both in dollars raised and in early polls. But as the only female candidate in the six-person Democratic primary race, Rice is under high pressure to prove she's tough enough to be the state's top law enforcement official, political experts say.

Attorneys general always have to be seen as uncompromising on crime, according to Dante Scala, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, who specializes in the science of primary campaigns. But thanks to the stereotypes still associated with gender, he said, female candidates have "to go the extra mile to show they’re tough."

"There's still that presumption that that’s something women have to prove," he said.

In order to make up that ground but not alienate voters, successful female candidates often "grab onto some tough action they’ve taken in the past," said SUNY Stony Brook professor Leonie Huddy, who is an authority on the role of gender in political campaigns.

Rice's ad touts her experience as a former Brooklyn prosecutor in the Special Victims' Bureau and her record in  reducing drug crimes "by 70 percent."

"I'll be a pro-choice, crime-prevention attorney general," she tells voters during the close of the ad. "But anyone who commits a violent crime or rips off the taxpayers will be brought to justice."

While some might point to similarities with former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's no-nonsense, gun-toting, "Mama Grizzly" persona, Huddy said Rice's strategy has more in common with women like California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and former New York Rep. Geraldine Ferraro.

Both women, she said, ran as "tough but nice" and touted their
previous accomplishments over personality. Ferraro, herself a former assistant district attorney in Queens, also stressed her experience, like Rice, working in the Special Victims Bureau,, which deals with sex crimes, child abuse and domestic violence

"What Kathleen Rice is doing is what so many women have done before," she said.

Rice's campaign released a second TV ad, called "Life," on Thursday. It takes a softer tone, showing New Yorkers going about their daily lives while a woman speaks. 

Still, the ad ends on a tough note, with Rice talking about expanding the Attorney General's powers to take on government corruption.

"If you cheat the taxpayers of New York, you should go to prison," Rice says in the ad.

Rice spokesman Eric Phillips said that despite the high-powered TV spot, the campaign doesn't feel any added pressure to make her seem tougher because of her gender.

"Her record speaks for itself," Phillips said.

Ken Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College, said that what's most important for Rice at this point is not just to show voters that she's tough, but that she'll fight on their behalf.

"The question is tough for whom?" he said. "I think the question people want answered is for whom are you going to stand up?"

As one of the more conservative candidates in the race, Rice must also be careful to reach out to women voters, according to Barbara Winslow, a women's studies professor at Brooklyn College and founder of the Shirley Chisholm Project of Brooklyn Women’s Activism.

"One of the things that Palin taught us is [women] don’t support someone just because they're a woman," she said. "Being a woman is not enough."

Still, her ad is a far cry from opponent Sean Coffey's latest all-American "Justice" spot. His ad, re-released this week, features patriotic West Wing-style music playing behind grainy home movies of the former federal prosecutor as a kid, followed by a montage of faces of regular folks.

"New Yorkers don’t need another politician seeking office," the ad says. "We need an attorney general seeking justice."

Rice and Coffey will face State Sen. Eric Schneiderman, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky and Former Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo in the Democratic primary in less than a month.

The winner will then go up against Republican challenger Dan Donovan, the Staten Island district attorney, in November.