The 1990 movie "Crazy People" stars Dudley Moore as an ad executive who suffers a nervous breakdown and starts writing ads based on honesty about what the products are really about.Ads like: "Metamucil: It Helps You Go to the Toilet. If You Don't Use It, You'll Get Cancer and Die." And "Jaguar: For Men Who'd Like [sex] From Beautiful Women They Hardly Know."
After his bosses have Moore's character committed to an insane asylum, the ads accidentally get released to the public and become runaway hits. The bosses, after finding out that they can't replicate Moore's success, turn to him and his fellow inmates to create ads for the new "honesty in advertising" craze.
I think about that movie a lot when watching political ads. I wonder what would happen if "honesty in advertising" took hold in the Romney campaign:
VOICEOVER: Mitt Romney. Some liberals call him a flip-flopper. He was for a path to citizenship for illegals, then he was against it. He opposed amendments to define marriage as between one man and one woman, then supported them. He supported a universal mandate for people to buy health insurance, then called it socialism. He said he was a moderate "through and through," and now he says he's "severely conservative." Sometimes, even he can't remember what his positions are.
ROMNEY: "I'm not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was."
VOICEOVER: But there's one thing Mitt Romney is consistent about and always has been. He's a Republican. Barack Obama isn't a Republican. So there.
BANNER: Mitt Romney. Vote for him. Because he's the Republican.
ROMNEY: I'm Mitt Romney, and I approved this message. At least for now.
Or how about this one:
VOICEOVER: Some liberals say Mitt Romney has a problem with the truth. He's claimed that Barack Obama didn't say it was unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon and that military options were still on the table.
OBAMA: "When I say we're not taking any option off the table, we mean it. ... I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say."
VOICEOVER: He's claimed that his position on the auto industry bailout was "exactly what President Obama followed." But in 2009, he wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times urging lawmakers to "let Detroit go bankrupt."
VISUAL: Picture of newspaper headline: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt by Mitt Romney."
VOICEOVER: He claimed that Barack Obama never mentioned the deficit or the debt in the State of the Union Address when he mentioned it six times.
VISUAL: Clips of President Obama talking about the deficit and the debt in his Jan. 24, 2012, State of the Union Speech. Fade to the Politifact website's "Pants on Fire" symbol.
VOICEOVER: But there's one thing you can trust about Mitt Romney: He, you know, looks like you. And Barack Obama is ... well, you know.
BANNER: Mitt Romney. Vote for him. He may be a liar, but he's not ... well, you know.
ROMNEY: I'm Mitt Romney, and I approve of this message. If you don't, then you're just calling everyone racist who doesn't agree with you.
Or this:
VOICEOVER: Some liberals, like the ones who write The Wall Street Journal's "Market Watch," say that Massachusetts under Mitt Romney was 47th in the nation in job creation. That during his tenure, Massachusetts' job growth was at 0.9 percent, far behind the national average of more than 5 percent. Some other liberals have said that Romney's top economic adviser has said that outsourcing American jobs to other countries is a "good thing." Meanwhile, under President Obama, we've had two years of positive job growth after suffering massive losses under the last Republican president. Liberals say these things, and ... well, yeah, they're true. But you should ignore all that and vote for Mitt Romney anyway, because he knows how to create jobs. Because he says he does.
BANNER: Mitt Romney. Never mind the facts. He'll create jobs this time. Really.
This is, after all, the essence of the messages I keep hearing from so-called conservatives turned born-again Romneyites: "Yeah, we don't really like him, but he's not Obama." Why not be up front about it?
10 comments:
And it still leaves me jaw-dropped that Republicans stand behind this guy. Like voting for him is going to make you his BFF and you'll suddenly be part of the 1%? What on earth makes people think Romney is a good idea?
*head shake*
Simple, Fran. They hate Obama. Hate. Him. A "conservative" wrote to the paper last week, saying he "would vote for a gorilla over our current president. Heck, maybe even Mickey Mouse." That's what we're up against: people who hate Obama more than they love the country.
nice i like it
My wife has been saying for three years that there's one thing behind most of the hatred - Congressmen heckling the State of the Union, "birther" BS, etc. - and that is straight out racism.
She's right.
Jeff M.
great
Fran, Dusty's absolutely right. They're not voting FOR Romney, they are voting AGAINST the black man. They can say it's "because he's destroying the country" until they're blue in the face, but since we can see that he isn't that only leaves that he's black.
So they'll vote for the party that's dedicated to getting rid of science, education, equal protection under law and religious freedom. Because, after all, they are the "party of Lincoln."
Don't forget that POTUS is 'uppity.' He, 50% white, has made more of himself than all but a few of the 100%-white folks. You can cut the resentment and self-loathing (through the camo paint) with a SawzAll and a diamond blade.
CLJ: Case in point: "Don't vote for Obama based on what you think he will do for you, vote against him based on what he has done to our country." -My uncle Bob on Facebook
Like:
Gave the order to find and kill Osama Bin Laden
Eliminated several other Al-Qaeda leaders
Ended the War in Iraq
Begun the drawdown of forces from Afghanistan
Passed health care reform
Passed a stimulus that most economists agree kept things from being even worse than they were
Saved the auto industry
etc.
But he's you know, one of THEM. The OTHER.
good
Dusty, my dear friend, this isn't relevant, but since you're looped up on Republican wackiness at the moment, you might have missed this and, well...
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk_letter
(I'm thinking of the *response*, not the complaint. Don't *you* wish you got to write responses like that?)
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