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"  In 30 seconds, Scott Sanders and Dennis Steele can transform a wholesome, Bible-thumpin&amp;#039; politician into a cheating extortionist who blows your tax dollars on Thai hookers and doesn&amp;#039;t deserve to be president of the local library association. For nearly three decades, Steele, 51 (at left), and Sanders, 59, have been the voices behind nasty political attack ads, using their sinister baritones to imply the absolute worst about America&amp;#039;s public servants. (Just ask Sanders&amp;#039; victim Rick Santorum.) Esquire met up with the hit men (who performed attack nursery rhymes about the candidates) to talk shop. What makes a really good political ad?   Steele: A good ad for my clients is one that moves an &amp;quot;undecided&amp;quot; voter into their camp. In most campaigns, you have maybe 40 to 60 percent of voters who&amp;#039;ve made up their mind -- nothing is going to change their vote. Ads are aimed at voters who are undecided and feature what they&amp;#039;re concerned about. Attack ads work. If they didn&amp;#039;t, you can bet no one would make them or put them on the air.  Sanders: If your opponent has skeletons in his closet, you have to expose them. Especially if he&amp;#039;s saying one thing and you know there are other things going on. I think a really good political ad restrains itself. A lot of these are so loaded with accusations that they go by too quickly. Then, I&amp;#039;ll have about 29 seconds left because of the disclaimer! It&amp;#039;s best to focus on one or two subjects, so people can absorb it. But I&amp;#039;ve been in situations where the first read is 33 seconds, and they won&amp;#039;t cut. So you have to talk like a bat out of hell and it just goes by so quickly that nobody can absorb it. But they don&amp;#039;t seem to understand that because they want everything in but the kitchen sink.  How did you train your voice to speak, well, so deeply and scary?  Sanders: I was born with a fairly deep voice, but I&amp;#039;ve done character voices, so I can change my pitch. Obviously if I&amp;#039;m doing an acting ad, it&amp;#039;s more happy. A lot if it is basically &amp;quot;insert the name of candidate here&amp;quot; because the verbiage is basically the same. It&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;political speak,&amp;quot; so it&amp;#039;s not really a training thing. It&amp;#039;s just like any good voice-over. You really don&amp;#039;t need a lot of coaching. Some people might say, &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s a little too hard, take it back.&amp;quot; Instead of a hard negative, it becomes a middle negative. Or if they really don&amp;#039;t want it, they&amp;#039;ll say, &amp;quot;Look, we really don&amp;#039;t want to lay on this person. Just say it, but just give them the facts.&amp;quot; And that&amp;#039;s a basic: &amp;quot;He was convicted in 1981 of conspiracy.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s under federal indictment.&amp;quot; Just kind of saying it rather than implying anything...there&amp;#039;s a difference.  Steele: I don&amp;#039;t have a particularly deep voice. There are much scarier guys out there than me. My clients like me as the &amp;quot;guy next door,&amp;quot; your neighbor or golf buddy. I&amp;#039;m the guy who just lays out the facts and gives you friendly advice...what some have called &amp;quot;soft negative.&amp;quot; I had a little singing training, and I received some great voice and announcing lessons in college. There&amp;#039;s a lost art to doing this, and I learned how to mark scripts, and time copy just by looking at it. I know pacing, mic technique, inflection, and tone. It was a great education. Before I ever made my first voice-over demo, I read over 3,000 spots as a radio producer. There&amp;#039;s nothing like repetition to help you improve.  Have you ever volunteered to work for the opposition of a candidate you didn&amp;#039;t like?  Sanders: Yes. I really wanted to see Santorum go down and he did. I&amp;#039;d been working for these consultants for a while, so it was kind of a, &amp;quot;Gee, I&amp;#039;d really like to do this. If you need any help at all, please call me.&amp;quot; I mean, it wasn&amp;#039;t anything like, &amp;quot;I want to take the bastard down!&amp;quot; or anything like that.  Steele: I haven&amp;#039;t. That might feel good in the moment, but wouldn&amp;#039;t be very professional. If I only worked for candidates I agreed with, I&amp;#039;d be out of business pretty quickly.  Is there anything you won&amp;#039;t do? Or is everyone fair game?  Steele: Everyone has an ethical line they won&amp;#039;t cross. But the work I&amp;#039;ve done deals with pretty standard issues: taxes, crime, corruption, jobs. My personal view of a candidate&amp;#039;s position never comes up in a session. The biggest conflict comes when I&amp;#039;m already committed to one campaign, and the candidate on the other side calls to see if I&amp;#039;m available. I have to keep close track of who I&amp;#039;m working for and where their ads are running.  Sanders: Well, the only thing I won&amp;#039;t do is people who support guns. I&amp;#039;m way anti-gun. But I&amp;#039;m a hired gun myself. Whoever&amp;#039;s got the money; it doesn&amp;#039;t matter.  Are you working with any 2008 presidential candidates?   Steele: I might be, but I can&amp;#039;t talk about it now. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a2746/dirt031907/>