I didn’t know that McCain’s team was toking some of the prime stuff as part of its outreach strategy, but it’s hard to imagine what else could have been on their minds when they created this incredible psychedelic mish-mash:
Maybe this is his idea of how to capture the youth vote. I have to admit that the first thing that came to mind when watching this satire-worthy ad is that it’s probably a mistake to run that old Churchill and Roosevelt footage — it may make people think those are McCain’s contemporaries.
Hat tip to Matt Browner Hamlin, who said:
Well, that’s a bit different than the usual from John W. McCain’s campaign. The ad makes fairly predictable parallels between McCain and Winston Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt. What’s more odd is that the general feel of the ad is a mix between Carl Sagan shots of the universe and Koyanniqatsi. That leads me to naturally wonder, what sort of hallucinogens does the McCain campaign think we should be taking when we watch this ad?
47 Responses to “McCain courts the stoner vote with craptacular ad”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Utterly Bizarre, I had to google the Roosevelt quote and it turned out a wierder reference than I thought (at first I figured it had something to do with the Phillipines which would be tragically appropriate). Instead its from a speech entitled:
Progessive Covenant with the People.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/troosevelt_film/trfpcp.html
It starts out like this:
Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great staffs, both of the old parties have ganged aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them in martialling [sic] to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
McCain you ain’t the outsider.
Wow. Obama should Mystery Science Theater that ad and run it late night. Instant +5% jump in the polls and tons of free airplay.
Hmm seems like Roosevelt used the phrase more than once the clip may have been from this speech:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9900E2DB123CE633A25754C0A96E9C946396D6CF&oref=slogin
Equally as bizarre given Rooselvelt’s positions.
Oooooh!
It’s Hip ‘n Edgy! High Concept! New Paradigm! Avant Gard! Other pseudo-modern-y Ad Man Talk!
That’ll REALLY get the young people into the voting booth to pull the lever for McCain!
(…only if your idea of “young people” is 50-60-year olds who are only on their 2nd/3rd Cadillac, and not their 5th/6th one…)
I think it was a sad attempt to challenge Obama’s soaring, inspiring oratory.
It’s why I’m a Hillary girl. Instead of trying to mimic Obama’s style, she openly mocks it (”The sky will open up…). I really identify with smartass women. They are my people.
I kinda like this ad, though it’s completely stupid. All those clouds make me think of those anti-$cient0logy “anonymous” videos. All this ad needs is some of those synthetic robot voices.
Yall do know what I’m talking about?
I think what McCain was going for was a sense of history or destiny that applies even to, what, the galaxy or something like that? Overblown, and a weird concept, but you gotta admit, it was beautifully produced.
Sure, John. Go on drawing parallels between Iraq and World War II. What a great way to signal that if you have your way, we’ll be over there indefinitely.
1. Creepy (I didn’t know we are in this WWII/intergalactic war. Was that a galaxy swirling? How exactly are we winning an occupation? How liberated do the Iraqis suppose to be before we can call it a win?)
2. Churchill? Who are his target audience?
3. “sense of entitlement” pot shot at Hillary
4. “can, we can…” hey everybody has the same campaign slogan now.
overall: grandiose, and perfectly out of touch. I fully expect Darth Vader’s death Start swirling by for a punch line.
at least they didn’t put clip of rocket launch or cheesy Time magazine WWII shot.
It looked more like a eulogy than a campaign ad.
Hmmm … some Moby music would have enhanced this major!
Dude…… don’t harsh my mellow.
..wait… can’t pass this line
” the stars, they are magnificent”
Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey ..
Somebody should poke fun this bombastic clip with the 2001 opening music “Also Sprach Zarathustra” and a chimpie bounching up and down shouting “Iraq, Iraq” then the monolith fall right on top of his head.
I bet it’ll be a youtube hit … lol
btw, just for reference
TRAILER - 2001: a space odyssey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vahx4rAd0N0
———
I wonder who will vote anybody who plays “Michael Nyman”-esque soundtrack? I thought Celine Dion was bad enough idea.
The Tubular Bells spooky music aside it might be an effective ad for the target they are going for.
That ad is obviously not aimed at us or even aimed independent voters who could go either way.
That ad is a shoring up the base ad. The ad is aimed right at the conservatives who claim they will stay home on election day before they vote for McCain.
The spooky music makes you feel a little uneasy.
The Churchill quote is targeted right at those who feel that a group of “scary Muslims” are the exact same thing as the combined armies of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.
The McCain as POW and the little girl holding the flag image are saying “you might not think he is conservative enough but you can’t question his patriotism.”
We will probably see a lot of weird ads targeted at the hard right. McCain can’t come out and be all Bible thumping and overtly racist but they have to target that hard right crowd because they know they cannot win without them.
A girl romping toward camera in colonial farmer dress on prairie..
hey………that
little house on the prairie (I can’t find the closing credit, which is much closer to that segment)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhHrOgOkXZw
(eeeck. I have to wash my brain with plenty of hendrix now. gonna make a post. bye.)
They, like, have all these democrats and furign guys in that there ad. It is too long and has too much airyfairy music and pictures of WASHINGTON DC for cripes sakes. Washington DC is to be hated, not celebrated!
I think this violates a number of “best song” rules and embodies a number of “worst song” rules as lined out in a very incisive This American Life segment.
I don’t think it is going to work for anybody.
I think it will be pretty effective. It isn’t aimed at this crowd; is there one person in fifty who reads this blog who’s a potential McCain voter? Other than the masochists like me, that is
Why everybody gotta be raggin’ on stoners? We wouldn’t be in this fucking war if george and dick and saddam woulda lit up and had some cheetos.
“…is there one person in fifty who reads this blog who’s a potential McCain voter?”
You and Dana - that’s about it…
Fight Fight Fight!
Kill Kill Kill!
That’s what I saw. Because the barbarian hordes are amassed on our borders ready to strike… right?
The more I think about that ad the more I realize what kind of predicament McCain finds himself in and why Obama will be the better candidate in November.
Let’s look at McCain’s predicament. Normally a Republican will run to the right in the primaries and then veer towards the center for the general.
McCain cannot take a turn to the center. The hard right already view him as being too liberal. He needs that hard right because they control the Republican Get-Out-The-Vote machine. They can run van pools from their mega-churches and they have the ground troops. That being said he needs the center as well. He cannot run full into the arms of Dobson without loosing that voter who is torn between Obama and McCain or Clinton and McCain. The full right run will also be taken as pandering by the right. He needs them to hold their nose and vote for him without loosing the center. That is where this ad is going.
Churchill a strong conservative who’s mother was American. He looked Germany in the eye and did not blink.
Teddy Roosevelt a respected Maverick Republican. (Yes we all know Teddy would have likely hung Ken Lay in the Rose Garden but he was a Republican and nobody understands history anyway.)
The line “I’ve never lived a day where I haven’t been proud of the privilege.” then the soft focus fade to a kid with a Flag. That is a shot across the bow to Obama over Michelle’s taken-out-of context proud of America statement.
“I don’t seek office out of a sense of entitlement.” A stab at Hillary and Obama.
Even the Hubble Space Telescope shots are a way of invoking the creator without saying God. They might not believe the universe is 13 Billion years old but except for the most rabid snake-charmers, Christians view Hubble images as proof of the majesty of God’s creation.
It’s a dog whistle ad. You aren’t supposed to hear it.
Which brings us to Obama or Clinton. If Clinton gets the nomination she will be in a similar predicament. She is distrusted by the Left and so will not be able to take that hard turn to the center. She will be in the same situation as McCain. She will have to get the Left to hold its collective nose to vote for her while getting those mythical swing voters in the Center.
Obama will not be in as bad a predicament. He may not be hated by the Left but no one on the Left is under the illusion that he is a Leftist. He also seems to have a pretty effective GOTV machine. the traditional Democratic GOTV ground troops have come from labor. Labor (unfortunately on so many levels) is not as effective as it once was.
This long campaign between the two might be a blessing in disguise. Obama has a lot of youthful energy on his side. Youthful energy, while intense, is not always long lasting. (Yes I am an Old Fart, sue me.) Had he wrapped it up on Super Tuesday his youthful ground troops might have lost interest by the convention let alone November.
If Obama can keep his idealistic followers with him after he makes his post-convention turn to the center then he wins.
If anyone thinks this is a derailment of this thread I apologize.
Quiet Truths March 7, 2008 at 10:15 pm
”
I think it will be pretty effective. It isn’t aimed at this crowd; is there one person in fifty who reads this blog who’s a potential McCain voter? Other than the masochists like me, that is
—–
If you ask me. My second reaction from that video is:
The trophy wife picked that crap didn’t she?
The flow is all wrong. It’s too obvious and cheesy.
I for one think french new wave retro is the coolest for campaign stuff. It give that brutally honest image.
But what do I know. I only watch too many crappy movies.
Wow what an awkward construction. Sorry about that. How’s this:
No one on the Left is under the illusion that he is a Leftist, but he is not hated by the Left.
Did anyone else get a “you better vote for the white man” vibe from this? To be perfectly clear I don’t think it was intentional, necessarily. But they are trying to place McCain in this historical narrative of great (white male) leaders. And, as squashed pointed out, the entitlement remark was a shot at Hillary. But I think really it could be taken as a shot at Obama and Clinton, suggesting that people only support them because they believe a non-white, non-male person somehow “deserves” the office. And the remark about there never being a day when he wasn’t proud to be a public servant seems like a reference to Michelle Obama (as in, even when John McCain was being tortured in a POW camp he was still proud to be an American…take that you ungrateful [insert slur here])
Maybe I’m overanalyzing (it’s been known to happen). In this election particularly though, anything this smothered in nostalgia (little girls picking flowers in fields, boy scouts, Winston Churchill) seems designed to draw on people’s fear of change, ie, fear of a non-white or non-male person being president.
And now that I’ve watched it again, this particular line seems a lot more charged.
Who does he mean by “they” here? On the surface it’s meant to reference “terrorists.” But, presented so vaguely and within the context of images of great white male leaders in the past and the voice of Winston Churchill, “they could just as easily reference political candidates who support getting out of Iraq….as in Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And it, conveniently enough, also frames them as not “Americans.”
Oh and the random text “For a man in the arena” that floats across the screen. What is that even a reference to? Except to point out that John McCain is, in fact, a man. Unlike some candidates.
So that’s my interpretation. Or maybe this election cycle is just getting to my head.
blair says:
I didn’t catch that aspect but it is a Dog Whistle ad so you might be right. Just remember nothing happens in a modern presidential election campaign ad that is unintentional.
The ending, with the little girls in fields of flowers, has GOT to be about evoking Lyndon Johnson’s ‘Daisy’ ad …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63h_v6uf0Ao
Colorado Dave, I think I’m with you on this being a dog whistle ad (sorry, didn’t see your comment before I posted) And your interpretation of the reference to the creator is interesting too. (Although it seems like a picture of the universe might be a little too science-ey for that crowd).
I think it’s really possible that the reason this ad seems to bizarre to us is exactly because of the conundrum Colorado Dave outlines. McCain’s in a position where he can’t even go with the obvious dog whistles because he can’t risk being called out for racism or sexism. We have a pretty pathetic standard for “subtle” in the American media when it comes to racism and sexism (as this election has already illustrated.) But still, it does pose a challenge. He has to appeal to the religious right, but he can’t alienate moderates. So he winds up vomiting up practically every campaign-ad cliche, making veiled references to his own status as another in a line of “great white men.” Plus the sky, new age music and children in a field, cause you know, who doesn’t like children in a field?
It would be hilarious if I wasn’t so worry that he might actually win in November.
This looks like what they showed to Ronald Reagan just before they turned him into Soylent Green.
If I were more facile with video editing, I think it might be interesting to patch in Slim Pickens riding his missile to glory amid the verbage about “never giving up” and such, and the final sequence with bombs blowing up from Dr. Strangelove.
Blair,
The Man in the Arena thing has to have some meaning. I’m a little confused about that one myself. Christians in the Coliseum?
I just watched it again.
Video and Text: “Clouds with The Time has Come”
Audio: Churchill’s fight on the Beaches Speech
Video: Churchill speaking, Eagle Nebula, Moving Stars,
Audio: McCain speaking “Keep that Faith, Keep that Faith….”
Video: McCain Speaking, Fast Night Traffic Overlayed over Lincoln Memorial, Fast Moving Clouds.
Audio: McCain speaking “…We will never surrender, they will.”
Video and Text: Clouds with “For a Man in The Arena”
Wow, what a Dog Whistle.
Good Catch Blair.
Pam, Amanda, everyone else: It is imperative that we not underestimate these bastards!
Although it seems like a picture of the universe might be a little too science-ey for that crowd
I have seen nebulae and galaxies on the overs of hymnals and missals. No planets though which is intriguing.
blair March 7, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Did anyone else get a “you better vote for the white man” vibe from this? ”
no, but I got the feeling a lot of ghosts/war/dead people in that clip. Two dead guys, a lot of “sky” and cloud floating, moody colors, static images, faded frame, old audio.
movies that come to mind are all evil: Minority reports, 8mm, Seven, Silence of the lamb, 2001. It’s a preview for psycho thriller. The vibe is all wrong. Is McCain going to die or play a psychotic killer president?
I just googled “arena Christian” and found the web pages to a great many mega-churches.
“The Arena” has meaning to Christians.
I have no idea whether the Christian Right will respond to this dog whistle but it is definitely in their frequency.
Squashed:
I got Twilight Zone or the Exorcist. It doesn’t matter because the intended audience has never seen Minority Report, 8mm, Seven, Silence of the Lambs, etc.
Sorry to best anyones High but I don’t find these people funny. Forty-eight percent of voters will cast their ballot for John McCain. Forty-eight percent of voters will cast their ballot for the Democratic candidate.
Both parties will be targeting that remaining 4 percent. That is where this ad is heading. This ain’t over by a long shot.
“The Man in the Arena” is a reference to this Teddy Roosevelt speech, not some cryptic Christian reference. The money quote (starting in red, part way down):
I think McCain is trying to contrast his military and POW experience with Clinton and Obama’s lack of the same. The dog-whistle is “I didn’t surrender then - I won’t surrender now.”
Of course, the T.R. quote could apply equally well to the chickenhawks in the current administration who got us into this lovely mess. And military experience isn’t everything. There’s another Illinois state legislator and single-term Congressman who did fairly well at leading the nation through a significant political and military crisis…
“This looks like what they showed to Ronald Reagan just before they turned him into Soylent Green.”
HAAAHHHHH!!! I could really picture that…
“If I were more facile with video editing, I think it might be interesting to patch in Slim Pickens riding his missile to glory amid the verbage about “never giving up” and such, and the final sequence with bombs blowing up from Dr. Strangelove.”
…but only if you also add G. Gordon Liddy talking about threats to the purity of our precious bodily fluids…
He most definitely means Hillary and Barack. They are the anti-war candidates who want to bring our troops home instead of leaving them in Iraq for 10,000 years, as McCain has suggested.
That’s surrendering to the right. Leaving a war we never should have started is surrendering. Stopping the killing and maiming of our soldiers and a bunch of brown people who never did anything to us is surrendering.
Surrendering to whom is never answered.
“The Arena” has meaning to Christians.
The Arena has special meaning to lions when Christians are placed in it: lunchtime!
Toss them all to the circus. We want entertainment!
Hi y’all! Been a long time since I could comment, or even look at the postings. I’ve been downloading them for most of a month now, off and on. Had to move you see, and before that got downsized out of the job that used to give me Net access in the wee hours when everyone but our Commonwealth folks was asleep.
OK,
Well, I hope not. I really want Obama to get the nomination because I think he would be a better leader of an actual democracy, as organizing collective action collaboratively rather than finagling through a top-down agenda is more his forte; this difference between him and Clinton has everything to do with why he would also be a better campaigner for November as well. And the specific tactics the Clinton people are using lately set my teeth on edge, most disturbingly the likelihood that she will attempt to trump Obama’s lead in elected, pledged delegates by trying to claim superdelegates (and the Michigan/Florida delegates) as hers by right of prior insiderness. That’s exactly the wrong sort of thing to do at this point.
Nevertheless, if she does win the nomination I for one will still be not just voting for her but campaigning for her, actively and with pride, come autumn. And I really think that Democrats in general, especially progessive ones, are much more realistic and pragmatic than their Republican counterparts. That is, as you move right from the Republican center, you get into loonier and loonier territory, with people who explicitly rely on belief in divine fiat in defiance of common sense, and/or a more and more explicit authoritarian nihilism–people like my supervisor at my old job, say, who freely admitted that the hype about invading Iraq was all a bunch of hooey, but nevertheless invading was the right thing to do because the USA should be an all-powerful hyperpower capable of defying any combination of foreigners. In short, they believe less and less in democracy and the American Way as our Capraesque mythology defines it. That is the Republican base these days, in the ideological sense, though I think we can better account for what the R machine does by assuming it is simply a front for global corporatism unbound,
But as you move leftward from the Democratic “centrists,” by and large you get people with saner and more sophisticated world-views, who fully understand that there is a difference between the world working just as you might dream it ought to and what ordinary people and vested interests will agree to do at the moment.
I have from time to time voted to the left of the Democratic offerings, but only in cases where I judged I would not tip the balance in a close race. When it is a matter of strategically heading off the worst possibilities, I have always voted for candidates who are less than ideal but better than the more reactionary alternative.
Thus I doubt Clinton has nearly as much to worry about from our Left as McCain from his Right. The US Right operates from a deep sense of entitlement and pragmatically speaking, they know though will never admit that the nuts and bolts of our society favor reaction all out of proportion to their numbers–that in the end, wealth is what we call “conservative” and our so-called democracy is more a matter of balancing dollars than people. Therefore even if their ideological extremism costs them nominal power in the nominally democratic government, they know that their special pleading will be far more effective on so-called “leftists” than even large majorities of dissidents from right-wing extremist government will be in restraining these.
Nice to have you back, Mark…
The ad reminds me of the intro to the X-Files–the spooky music, the weird visuals flying through clouds and space. The truth is out there.
And his speech? Straight out of Galaxy Quest.
Galaxy Quest…! lol
oh man, this is going to be hilarious, if the youtube parody start showing up.
“Never give up, never surrender!”