A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Rob Long ·
Aug 12, 2011 at 1:36pm
More like this, please:
Gotta love the gloves-off approach.
- Comment (21)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (0)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
| © 2012 Silent Cal Productions | Help • About • Contact • FAQ • Code of Conduct • Terms & Conditions • Privacy • Store • Site Map • DMCA |
Comments :
Oct '10
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Uh, yeh.
Mar '11
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Now that Mr Pawlenty is out of the race we can maybe snip off the last two seconds.
Mar '11
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Rick Perry should snap up the ad's creator when (s)he enters the ranks of the unemployed, shortly after Saturday.
Jul '11
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Now that, was a well made ad! I would like to see some media types hound the president with his '3 yrs' quote.
Jun '11
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Pawlenty should stick to running ads like this and avoid debates.
Sep '10
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
I'm pretty sure that the MSM considers the use of direct quotes from Obama to be dirty, mudslinging, personal, and no doubt racist, attacks.
Feb '11
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Well, unfortunately for Gov. Pawlenty, it takes more than good advertising to get over the hump. And he just hasn't nor does it seem likely he will.
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
This would make a lot more sense coming out of the RNC or an independent-expenditure group. Or the nominee's campaign -- the nomination having been secured.
Pawlenty's running against eight other Republicans. He needs to establish an identity and an agenda that separates himself from the pack.
So, imo, this ad is effective in making an argument against Obama as a failed leader. But ineffective in that it says nothing about why you should vote for Pawlenty -- other than the fact that's he's not Barack Obama, which of course every Republican can say.
Dec '10
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Notice the swallow? The only action footage with a person in it is Tim Pawlenty swiveling his head and swallowing?! Yeah, the last two seconds are just sad.
Nov '10
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
This is so much better than the ads with scary music that feature unflattering shots of the opponent and a narrator intoning scary comments he or she has allegedly made. It's brilliant to have Obama actually speaking these words. But Bill's right: This ad in no way distinguishes Pawlenty as anything other than Not Obama.
Oct '10
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
I was jumping out of my chair and cheering and then came the image of T-Paw. But still a great message.
Oct '10
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
I love the Romney ads and this one too. Generic Republican is the real winner here.
Aug '10
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
And Mitt Romney is the most generic Republican of them all. (That's how the GOP sorts applications for their "nominate the Next Guy" tradition, right?)
Mar '11
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Rob: I gotta tell ya, I’m a bit ambivalent about Pawlenty’s ads, and have been from the start.
The fact that he’s not exactly a pugnacious type of guy, but his campaign puts out these ads that are like climactic scenes of Greek tragedy has always struck me as more than a little ironic. But this irony heightens the second concern that I have.
The shiekness and slickness, the HD video, the opera music, the whole thing is reminiscient of a summer blockbuster movie trailer (as others have noted). What’s disturbing about this isn’t Pawlenty’s message (he’s right on point there), its rather that I think the message gets lost in the overwrought glamor.
So, the sheer proportions of the ads outweigh both the soft-spoken candidate and the message.
Politics, in my humble Aristotle-influenced account, is supposed to be about citizens exercising their virtues in the public sphere to accomplish a common good. It is the proper end of every free man.
Pawlenty makes this sober, deliberate activity seem like something that only someone capable of epic Beowulf-esque feats of strength can take part in. It puts image over substance.
Mar '11
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
(cont.) I may have to get used to this sort of thing coming from both sides of the aisle and may be being a bit too old fashioned here, but I just can’t get used to these ridiculous scenes of Greek columns and solemnly lit stages in front of millions in a stadium, or big-budget, thunderous, rollicking ads.
It’s as if, to make up for the utter lack of substance in some of these candidates, we have deployed all the modern technology available to us to hide this fact from ourselves. That bodes ill for the prospects of self-government.
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Crow's Nest, I have the same negative reaction as you do, but I'm trying to put my finger on exactly why. It's not because inherently I think a political advertisement shouldn't appeal to drama, or that it must make a dry, intellectual argument--after all, "Bear in the Woods" and "Daisy" were not precisely articles in the Quarterly Journal of Political Economy.
I suppose it's just that this seems fake and cheesy.
Jun '11
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Crow's Nest, I have the same negative reaction as you do, but I'm trying to put my finger on exactly why. It's not because inherently I think a political advertisement shouldn't appeal to drama, or that it must make a dry, intellectual argument--after all, "Bear in the Woods" and "Daisy" were not precisely articles in the Quarterly Journal of Political Economy.
I suppose it's just that this seems fake and cheesy. · Aug 13 at 5:34am
I think it's a great ad. Remember it's not supposed to convince the kind of folks who belong to Ricochet. It's a perfect ad in a media age for people who are not deep political thinkers.
That being said, it's a perfect ad for the general election, not the Republican primary.
Mar '11
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
It's a perfect ad in a media age for people who are not deep political thinkers.
In a way, One-Eyed, I am agreeing with you. It's why I lamented and threw up that shambling signpost that pointed toward Aristotle, even while mocking myself as a bit old-fashioned.
I'm trying to put my finger on exactly why. It's not because inherently I think a political advertisement shouldn't appeal to drama, or that it must make a dry, intellectual argument--after all, "Bear in the Woods" and "Daisy" were not precisely articles in the Quarterly Journal of Political Economy.
I am also trying, clumsily, to put my finger on exactly why. I share your belief about the importance of narrative and drama in political things. Nor am I denying that advertising serves a necessary, but different, purpose than philosophy. Indeed, I fully recognize that the a 1-minute medium cannot serve the latter purpose.
Without simply putting it down to snobbery (which, again, I may be guilty of along with my previously noted fuddy-duddyness), it is perhaps because I fear the dissolution of public philosophy is too much with us already.
Aug '11
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
It really is a great ad (though I would have probably wanted to emphasize the bit where Timothy Geithner says there's no risk of a downgrade, followed by the downgrade. The audio is a bit hard to follow there, but that seems like such an important point to hit on). And yes, it has that movie-trailer quality that will certainly capture the attention of the youts. (If it's true that the millennials are shifting rightward, then this is an appropriate ad for them.)
As an ad that gives the impression that Barack Obama is a terrible President who must be voted out of office, it is fantastic. I don't think I'm going too far when I say it suggests Barack Obama is the villain of some summer blockbuster movie. But as others have pointed out, there is nothing here to argue for Pawlenty.
And that's a shame, because it means that when Pawlenty drops out of the race, we'll never get to see this ad again.
Apr '11
Re: A Powerful Political Ad, Except for the Last 2 Seconds
Unless we splicd it:
http://splicd.com/yJZl-YzYHFc/0/54
(& keep reposting it on FB pages and retweeting it occasionally throughout the coming campaign season)