Posted on 09/23/2004 11:31:25 PM PDT by kattracks
LOOK, I freely admit I don't want John Kerry to be the next president of the United States. But I can't say I'm enjoying the way Kerry keeps making things worse for himself.Just as I find it difficult to enjoy Ben Stiller comedies, which try to wring laughs out of hapless men humiliating themselves, I'm now finding it painful to witness the way Kerry's hapless and humorless reactions to the quick-witted Bush campaign's jabs at him are only inten sifying his difficulties.
The big political story over the past two days has been the Kerry campaign's reaction to a Bush ad. The ad offers a critique of Kerry with absolutely nothing new to it. It says, accurately, that Kerry "bragged" about voting for the $87 billion to support the troops before voting against it as well. It tags him with changing positions on Bush's education reform and for voting five times in the Senate to increase Medicare premiums, which he did.
This is basically the same "he flip-flops on issues" line that the Bush people have been using against Kerry since March. What's fresh about the Bush ad is the dominant image and the music.
[snip]
Instead of hitting back with a comparable lightness of touch, the Kerry people went berserk. Mike McCurry, Kerry's spokesman, called it a "shameful advertisement that shows a disturbing disregard for those fighting and sacrificing in Iraq."
Then the Kerry campaign offered up a counter-ad with an American flag in the background making the same point: "In the face of the Iraq quagmire, George Bush runs a juvenile and tasteless attack ad."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
It's a brilliant ad, the music and the windsurfing drive the point home so well. Nothing sells like humor, and no humor sells like a zing.
Best I've seen Kerry's hair in months!
The Bush Prayer.
Lord, please let my enemies underestimate me, but most of all please let them be humorless in doing so.
The windsurfing ad is great. If Lurch would lighten up he might be scoring a few points in the polls. I don't think the pervasive bush bashing is really winning over the crowd. Don't know what happened to the left. Springsteen has become a school marm. The left used to be so much fun. I liked the left much better when they were crazed drug addicts. Kerry has led the left into a hazy universal lurch-like quagmire.
The effectiveness of the ad is this:
Kerry's whole appeal is to appear intellectual, nuanced, suave.
Kind of like mutual fund commercials.
Once you punture the pretentiousness there is no substance left--and it shows.
If you can get people to laugh at your opponent, you need not defeat him!
Finally, a serious point: if we are in such perilous times
as the DNC alleges, what in the F*CK was Kerry doing
windsurfing?
I kept staring at Kerry's hair today. Lots more black this week, and it isn't done well. There is a black line that is much more definite, not feathered in as it was last week. With all his money, you'd think his hairdresser could do a much more competent job. But then his wife has all that money and she just succeeds at looking like a rumpled aging hippie.
A MAGPIE!
Help me if you can please. Didn't GHWBush catch it from the press because he was golfing or fishing while people in Somalia were starving? Or was it the Kurds?
The other plus, strategery-wise, is that it's calculated to push Kerry-the-man's buttons and make him behave in ill-advised ways, which it has done. It's a personal insult in a public arena, and it's very effective.
So the dems are complaining about another GWB ad? What could we run that they'd like? Maybe we should tell how he's such a hero, outstanding senator and family man. Maybe we should have a mock courts martial commercial where at the end he faces a firing squad for treason.
He won't get a role opposite Tina Fey on SNL, that's for sure.
Anyone know where it is on the web?
www.georgewbush.com --- All the Bush ads are there.
This one's priceless.
THANKS!
To me the thing that makes the ad is the music. Just the sort of tune one boogies down to at JFK-II's Swiss finishing school, no doubt. "Achey-Breaky Heart" it ain't! Makes Francois seem a tad... oh I don't know... what word am I looking for... GAY! Yeah, that's it!
This is a similar ad and even funnier!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1224870/posts
KEY INSIGHT:
So the Kerry camp is trying to argue with a straight face that because there is horrible news from Iraq, Bush has no right to tease or make fun of Kerry. In this vein, McCurry told reporters, "People do not want to see lighthearted advertising when families are very heavy-hearted about what's happening to their loved ones."
Such a complaint seems to draw a parallel between the campaign hardships of John Kerry and the personal hardships of military families, which is frankly a pretty stupid direction to go in for a struggling presidential campaign....
Political ads that complain about other political ads are rarely very effective. They're a tricky proposition because they threaten to make the complainer sound, well, more like a complainer than a leader.
Worse still, all they do is serve to call attention to the original attack itself. Most people who see the Kerry ad won't know what it's whining about, but the whining may make them curious about the supposedly offending ad.
An "I'm being attacked" ad is also catnip for political press, cable networks and others, who need such controversies for stories. By staging a direct assault on the windsurfing ad, Kerry and his team have ensured that the Bush attack on Kerry will get far more attention and millions in free media exposure.
And the next ad of this nature has to use the music Blowing in the Wind."
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind . . .
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