Political ads are a delightful study in human nature. Both from the design and delivery of the ad itself, to the presumed assumptions the campaigners hope to achieve. For the sake of illustration, let me offer a fake ad for a fake candidate from a fake political party. Ready? Prepare yourself. This could get complicated.
“I’m Snow White and I approve this ad. Are you sick of Mr. Poopy Pants? Me too. Vote for me November 7th and I promise to be Jesus, Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi and Bullwinkle.” Miss White clearly wants you to believe 2 distinct things: She is good incarnate and he is the Anti-Christ (with irritable bowel syndrome). Tough choice. Better think long and hard about who you will support. The issues are painstakingly spelled out here so that there can be no mistake about what you are voting for: Snowy or Poopy.
Somewhere, in the past decade or so, in some ad design meeting room, somebody convinced the political powers that be that the American public should not be bothered with clarity of thought or distinctly articulated vision. The decision was made to simplify the information process down to the lowest common denominator: the other side has poopy pants. That’s it, that’s all, don’t look any deeper than that. Poopy pants.
When I was a kid, one of my favorite TV shows was the Dick Van Dyke Show. Dick’s character, Rob once decided to run for a political office and ended up running against a complete genius, played by Wally Cox. Long and short of it was that at a public debate the genius smoked Rob and Rob ended up sitting in front of him asking questions and saying, “Wow. I didn’t know that!” over and over. Ironically, Rob won the election even though he tried really hard to lose so that the best man would win.
Wouldn’t it be fun if my fake campaign ad went like this: “Hi. I’m Mr. Poopy Pants. I have I.B.S. It’s embarrassing but, I manage. Miss Snow White is a good person and she might even do a better job than me. Oh, and she smells good too. Anyway, I’d appreciate the chance to work for you if you’d let me. I’ll do my best, but I’m sure I’ll make a few mistakes along the way. Maybe Miss White could be on my staff and help me if I’m elected. I have some pretty cool ideas at a web site you can visit. Thank you for your time.” Ah, doesn’t that just make you want to say, “POOPY FOR PRESIDENT”?
1 comment:
That is hillaraious! You must love being able to blog!
The politicians are so busy trying to make the other candidate look bad, and defend themselves of what the other candidate said about them, rather than using their tv space to say what good they are trying to stand for, and will try to accomplish. Crazy!
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