Hat tip to Brian at BlueNC for this news — homobigot Vernon Robinson, who tried and failed to unseat Congressman Brad Miller in the 13th District race here in 2006, has picked up something as a consolation prize — the “Willie” award for Worst Political Advertisement, given by progressive thinktank Growth & Justice.
Here’s what Vern actually put on the air to receive the honor; he does the NC GOP proud:
And a snippet the post I did back when that ad was first released (March 2006) is below the fold.
You can view the award ceremony where U.S. Senate candidates Al Franken and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer announce the award, here.
The Twilight Zone-theme and music are quite appropriate in this case. This is one of the most offensive — and amusing — pieces of political theatre I have ever seen, with a picture of a fetus, then invoking the Homo AlertTM
with an image of men kissing. He moves on to “aliens,” showing spaceships, then cutting to a pic of Mexicans scaling fences. This ad packs every wingnut, unhinged Freeper cause into this one media piece.
What’s amusing is that the spot says a lot about this self-loathing black man — the fact that he’s a Republican is incidental, other than it’s the party as it exists today that kowtows to bigots like Robinson. When the announcer in the ad is bleating about not being able to “post the Ten Commandments in public or say God in public.”, it cuts the all-American white children in the picture above.
The spot immediately segues to a mug shot of Jesse Jackson and a retro shot of Al Sharpton to talk about black babies born out of wedlock and quotas. There’s no logical connection, only the juxtaposition for shock value. It’s sad.
Yes, Vern is appealing to the base of the party and its values. He even calls the ad “The Twilight Zone vs. Leave It To Beaver” — the last shot is of the Cleaver family backing out of their driveway, going out for a car ride. The Real America.
It’s Vern’s ode to the TV lily white surburban fantasy world. In the real world, he would have been sitting at the back of the bus and chased from the whites-only lunch counter. Nice.
16 Responses to “Worst political ad award honors NC’s Vernon ‘Twilight Zone’ Robinson”
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Don’t they realize this ad was sabotaged by the kid in the Abecrombe t-shirt?
Abecrombe = twink pron, ya know!
If I were to see this during an episode of Saturday Night Live I’d a thought that’s a pretty good joke ad.
I don’t know what’s worse: that they put this crap out or that 20-30% of Americans eat it up.
Although, from a production point of view, it’s better than a lot of political commercials. Doubtful they could have made the idiot look anymore creepy at the end with the lighting.
Off topic, but does anyone else other than El tiburon have a hell of time getting the ‘anti-spam measure’ correct on first try?
I don’t even wear glasses.
That was indeed pretty funny; you couldn’t make a much better parody. I like how he just stuck a full-on photo of some gay men kissing in there - isn’t that very thing these sort of people don’t want to see..?
Yep. All white. Stuck in the past. Headed backward.
If I were to see this during an episode of Saturday Night Live I’d a thought that’s a pretty good joke ad.
If I’d seen that on SNL, I’d think that they’d gotten better writers.
Yep. All white. Stuck in the past. Headed backward.
*applauds*
I like how he just stuck a full-on photo of some gay men kissing in there - isn’t that very thing these sort of people don’t want to see..?
Hey, it’s better than last week’s ad against “San Francisco Values” that used totally heterosexual heterosexuality as a “tasteful” stand in for gay issues.
So all the things you see in the ad are bad, except for the black man sitting in a creepy low-contrast studio?
Winner?
See, I didn’t think he *was* black: I thought it was just the bad lighting. Wow, that just makes it…
worse? Funnier? Sicker? Can’t decide…
Um–
what came in second?
Did they actually get permission to use that in their ad spot? I wouldn’t think CBS would be so keen on their Intellectual Property being used for political partisanship. I think the fact that it’s being used for gain like that, and that it’s explicit, not just a reference, with black and white scenes with a twiddley background music, but using the exact song and title image.
so, yeah…
Wow, I think the blatant manipulation factor is pretty offensive in and of itself. Don’t the conservatives ever look at stuff like this and think “our leaders think we’re this stupid?”
“Don’t the conservatives ever look at stuff like this and think “our leaders think we’re this stupid?””
Apparently, many of them are too stupid to notice. They’re probably too busy saying to themselves, “Now that’s my kind of guy!”.
“Conservatives” may not understand the rest of us very well, but they usually understand their base all too well…
FNORD! FNORD!