Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Tim Penny started running his first radio ads this week. Penny entered the governor's race at the end of June, long after the other major party candidates. He says he wants to get his message out before the clutter of advertising starts next month.

	IP gubernatorial candidate Tim Penny has released the first ads of his campaign, where he uses humor to poke fun at his rather dry style. Listen to the ad. (MPR file photo)

The Penny campaign is running three 60-second radio spots on stations in the Twin Cities and in southern Minnesota. Produced by Hunt Adkins, a Minneapolis ad agency that's never done political ads, the spots try to portray the former DFL Congressman as someone who's not a typical politician.

ANNOUNCER: "This Tim Penny for governor ad was going to be a triumph of negativity. We were going to have Tim rip his opponents into tiny, little bits. Vivisecting them so completely that not a shred of their psyches would remain. But when we ran this idea by Tim, he said:

PENNY: "No." (door slams)

The ads poke fun at Penny for his rather dry style and seeming inability to speak in sound bites.

ANNOUNCER: "At a recent campaign meeting, gubernatorial candidate Tim Penny suggests a pithy line to put on a button." PENNY: "We're at that moment in Minnesota history right now where people are really hungry for something different, they want this something different to be something that's closer to the middle of the spectrum..."

Ad analyst Ron Faber, a professor of mass communication at the University of Minnesota, calls the ads "interesting."

"I think clearly they're an attempt to utilize a humorous approach much like the approach that Governor Ventura used when he ran, and in some ways, they're very reminiscent of some of those ads," Faber said. "But I'm also not convinced they're going to be very effective ads."

Faber says Penny's somewhat monotonous voice is hard to hear, and his points may get lost in the ad. Faber also wonders if humor will be as effective in the election year after Sept. 11.

"I think people think that our problems are deeper and more serious than we've seen in many, many years. And there is a risk here that humor will make people think that he's not that serious a candidate," he said.

Penny says there's no point in running a serious ad in August.

"If you just do a typical ad, no one's going to hear it, because it's not going to catch their attention," he said. "So we hired a firm that has nothing to do with political campaigns and said, look, we've got a serious message, but help us get people's attention in the middle of the summer doldrums."

Faber says conventional wisdom is that voters don't pay attention to campaigns until after Labor Day. But he says Penny will create a first impression by being on the air before other candidates.

Republican Tim Pawlenty ran radio ads earlier in the year before winning party endorsement, and probably won't start again until September. DFL candidate Roger Moe and Green Party candidate Ken Pentel have yet to run radio or TV ads.

Faber says gubernatorial candidates will have a tough time buying airtime closer to the election. He says they'll also compete for viewers' attention amid the barrage of ads for Minnesota's competitive U.S. Senate race.