Did bridge ad backfire?

That was a pretty funny ad that state Treasurer and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Moore emailed to thousands of voters a few weeks ago. It showed a distinct lack of traffic on a $120 million bridge over the Trent and Neuse Rivers in Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue’s home town of New Bern. Perdue, of course, was influential in building the bridge and liked to call it hers. And she’s also running for governor.
Moore’s ad was compelling because it contrasted the lack of traffic on the New Bern bridge with traffic jams in Charlotte and elsewhere, suggesting that politics was involved and ought not to have been. (The ad also used a clip from the Eagles’ “Life in the Fast Lane,” which so annoyed Don Henley that he and his wife sent $4,000 contributions to Perdue.)
That ad was memorable. But I dunno if it was effective. Thing is, there are a hell of a lot of North Carolinians for whom that bridge was a vast improvement over the old impossible traffic jams that used to occur in New Bern. And it was scary when a hurricane blew up and threatened to come across the area. There was no good way to get out, just as there was no fast way through the town in good weather. Either you went cross town and endured a procession of stoplights, or you doubled back across the Trent River, first risking getting held up by a downtown drawbridge, and then you took your chances on the old long bridge across the Neuse to Bridgeton. There were hideous traffic jams there when boat traffic on the Neuse required the halting of auto traffic, too.
The new bridge was built for the future. It allows plenty of room for power and sailboats to pass beneath without disrupting traffic. And it opened up Pamlico County across the river to a level of development and prosperity it would not otherwise have seen. That may be good or bad, but it definitely enabled travelers from Western and Piedmont North Carolina to cut a hefty chunk of travel time from their trips.
I imagine the Moore campaign feels it made a good point with motorists who are forever stuck in traffic in urban areas – but that ad may have lost Moore votes from folks who remember the bad old days when it could take an hour or more to crawl through New Bern on the way to hunting, fishing or sailing somewhere Down East.