Can Someone Please Make This Ad?
Here's my very simple idea for a Democratic campaign ad:
-The GOP's 1994 "Contract with America" appears on the screen.
-As the camera focuses in on the Contract's preamble, we can hear Republican House members reciting the words:
-The screen then flashes in rapid succession to headlines of all the Republican scandals of the last few years: Randy "Duke" Cunningham behind bars, Tom Delay indicted and resigning in disgrace, Bob Ney pleading guilty to corruption charges, Mark Foley exposed as a child predator, Dennis Hastert and the Republican leadership implicated in a cover up, etc. etc.
-The screen then flashes to the original TV Guide advertisement used to launch the Contract with American. In bold type it reads: “If we break this contract, throw us out. We mean it.”
-The commerical ends with the narrator asking, in a solemn voice: "Had enough?"
-The GOP's 1994 "Contract with America" appears on the screen.
-As the camera focuses in on the Contract's preamble, we can hear Republican House members reciting the words:
[W]e intend to act "with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right." To restore accountability to Congress. To end its cycle of scandal and disgrace. To make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves.-Halfway through the recitation, the screen switches to footage of the 1994 press conference on the steps of the Capitol, where all the Republican members of the House solemnly pledged to end the "cycle of scandal and disgrace" in Washington.
-The screen then flashes in rapid succession to headlines of all the Republican scandals of the last few years: Randy "Duke" Cunningham behind bars, Tom Delay indicted and resigning in disgrace, Bob Ney pleading guilty to corruption charges, Mark Foley exposed as a child predator, Dennis Hastert and the Republican leadership implicated in a cover up, etc. etc.
-The screen then flashes to the original TV Guide advertisement used to launch the Contract with American. In bold type it reads: “If we break this contract, throw us out. We mean it.”
-The commerical ends with the narrator asking, in a solemn voice: "Had enough?"
posted by A.L. at 3:21 PM
7 Comments:
Brilliant. I think it really IS critical that we cast republican failure in a broader light than just the current bullshit. Remind people what they thought they were buying in '94 and ask them if it's paid off (it damned sure hasnt) , I think that puts everything in the best context possible
I was looking for that Contract=On-America! I wonder how many Repigs remember that and the man (Gingrich) most responsible for that pack of lies.
Excellent idea. Why not send it to the DNC, addressed "attn: Howard Dean"?
Couldn't hurt.
Sadly, nobody read the fine print in that Contract with America:
"We the undersigned do hereby agree to maintain the appearance of bringing forth a new era of accountability until such time as we have been able to gain complete control over all branches of government. And at such time, this contract is to be considered null and void."
An even simpler print ad. A picture of Michael Brown, of FEMA 'fame' (fronting a 'weather channel' style map of a hurricane and scenes of flooding); a picture of Hastert (fronting a picture -- or cartoon -- of Foley and a rubber stamp); a picture of Rumsfeld (fronting a map of Iraq and either a coffin or a bombed out building).
Tag line:
George Bush thinks these men have done 'great jobs.' If you disagree
VOTE DEMOCRATIC!
------
We in the blogosphere are political junkies, and it's great that we are. But Glenn Greenwald had a post yesterday that pointed out that most people are not, and don't have the time to be.
"There are, as Matt Yglesias pointed out the other day, huge numbers of people in this country -- clearly the majority of the electorate -- who are not at all stupid but simply do not have the time or inclination to pay close attention to political events. In that regard, people who spend substantial time in the blogosphere are aberrational; it is not the norm to monitor political developments on a daily basis."
Unfrotunately, too many of us have a habit of treating such people with contempt, because they don't understand the complicated details of the thousands of Bush horrors. They DON'T understand who Abramoff is, or the implications of 'signing statements' or even the implications of things that Bush claims are VITAL to fighting the GWOT. And they tend, not unreasonably, to give the President -- any President -- the benefit of the doubt.
These people are neither evil not stupid, I repeat again. They just don't spend a lot of time thinking about, or caring about, 'political issues'
Our lectures don't reach them emotionally, -- and the name-calling that too many of us, not here but elsewhere, indulge in will simply turn them off -- but these issues do.
An ad like this will 'scratch the teflon,' and the pathetic Republican spins on the Foley issue will be seen for what they are, hypocrisy practised as one of the fine arts.
Ah, but making the ad would be less useful than you might think. Here in our neck of the woods, for example, you can't figure out who the GOP candidates are without a scorecard. Got some campaign literature right here, for the guy who I happen to know won the GOP primary for the local district seat in the House, and NOWHERE does it say he's a republican.
It's a little booklet, four pages front and back, and not one mention of party. And the candidate for Senate here NEVER mentions his party affiliations. Not that it's helped him, he was in Congress already and everybody knows he's a Republican robot.
Meanwhile, the NRCC is running personal attacks on their opponents.
So while I applaud the spirit of your suggestion, I really think the money is better spent on ads accentuating that "candidate X is a Democrat" and listing their policy positions.
This isn't going to help in the deeps of GOP territory, where nobody watches anything but Fox -- if they even watch anything but the farm report and bassmasters, buckmasters. Those places are so insulated from reality and have such a hatred of anywhere else that only a deep red glow is visible, and on the radio you get only evangelicals and Rush Limbaugh fighting it out for market share.
Placing an ad like the one you suggest in such an area would be like pouring sand down a rathole. So while I like the thought, I don't think it would be as effective as we'd wish.
Anyone notice racism in the new Mcain (How Disrespectful Ad). Showing Obama (Black man) man disrecpectful to Palin (white Woman )
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home