Now that we’re just six months away from electing our country’s very first tanned hernia into office, Hillary Clinton has her sights set squarely on taking down our future President Trump. And with that laser focus comes a brand new attack ad that is great—at least as far as attack ads go—but also a futile attempt to stop the inevitable.
President Obama will visit Walt Disney World tomorrow. The plan is to "unveil a strategy that will significantly help boost tourism and travel," according to the White House, which informs us that this is "an important sector in the U.S. economy." All well and good, but let's skip to the important part: What delicious Republican wisecracks that we'll hear ten million times over the next year will emerge from this?
Now that Stephen Colbert is officially exploring the possibility of running in South Carolina, his Super PAC, under the direction of Jon Stewart, has begun running attack ads. The first spot targeted Mitt Romney, who was likened to Jack the Ripper, and may have had an exaggeration or two. But that's not on Colbert's shoulders, after all, like all the other candidates, he isn't coordinating with the Super PAC.
Looks like Rick Perry is on Mitt Romney's list! (Right after the guy from LMFAO.) Last night, of course, Perry got Romney to show his "horror movie stepfather" side by doggedly interrupting the GOP frontrunner. Tonight, the Romney campaign put a "brutal" attack ad on YouTube—and then mysteriously pulled it. Drama!
So this dumb conservative PAC finally, finally made the ad about Barack Obama's controversial preacher Jeremiah Wright that the McCain campaign didn't want to touch. Its very existence garnered plenty of media attention&dmash;and, of course, free airtime for the ad—but then the PAC had to actually put it on television. Instead of a targeted ad-buy in white swing areas, they just went national, sticking it on Sunday Night Football, last night's Saturday Night Live election special, and, uh, on the Rachel Maddow show? Clearly they didnt want to "influence the election" or anything with their little ad, they just wanted to annoy the hell out of Democrats while they're trying to watch their liberal shows.
Barack Obama's finally taken a shot at Republican Vice Presidential charade Sarah Palin, America's Favorite Halloween Joke-slash-Future of the Republican Party. The official campaign ad repeats the fun old McCain quote about how he doesn't understand that "economy" thing and his VP pick will probably have to help him with math. Then, cut to Palin winking. Remember how she can't even wink correctly? It was stupid when George W. Bush winked in debates, but at least the man can actually wink. Palin flinches. When it comes to the economy, can America handle flinching? Until we read otherwise, we're going to assume this is one of those ads that are just sent to political journalists and not necessarily played on real tv? There isn't even any talking in it. Click through to watch, and also read a preview of a zinger to be delivered in North Carolina today! Click to view From Obama's prepared remarks for a rally in Raleigh, today:
Hey, is this Mitch McConnell campaign ad a little odd, or is it just us? Mitch is a Senator running for reelection. Schumer is a Senator too. So far, so good. But the thing is, McConnell is running in Kentucky, and Schumer is not running in Kentucky. So it's just weird that McConnell's ad would be all about how this NEW YORK Senator is spending all this MONEY on building museums for hippies, and illegal immigrants, and also presumably shining his diamond collection. Also the voice over guy... his accent is a bit... ethnic. Just what is Mitch McConnell trying to suggest, exactly? Can anyone enlighten us??? Full ad after the jump.
Gee, it's almost like Barack Obama's campaign predicted McCain would distance himself from President Bush at last night's debate! How else could they have put together this clever ad refuting McCain's crazy claim that he's not George W. Bush? More importantly: they highlighted all the mugging and blinking because that's the important message here. They're very good, right? [via Radosh]
Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman is a scummy asshole and also, usually, a surprisingly good politician. (You'd kinda have to be to be a New Yorker with a sham marriage to a wannabe Hollywood actress and still win in Minnesota.) He's the "which way is the wind blowing" style of campaigner, and now he's suspending his campaign to... no, sorry, he's "suspending all negative campaign ads" as of today. It's a great little stunt, actually. Coleman's running against Al Franken. Franken basically didn't have a chance in hell of winning, until a) Obama began surging and b) the economy went into a tailspin. Suddenly, Obama is occasionally polling in the double digits in Minnesota (a double-digit Obama victory may be the only way for Franken to get into office), and, even worse, Franken is sometimes outpolling Coleman (Franken is up 9 points in the most recent Star Tribune poll, which is an outlier, but Coleman's lead seems to be shrinking everywhere else). The campaign's been vicious and negative by any standard, but especially for Minnesota, where campaigns have always seemed a little more polite. All this was before a video of Coleman's spokesman disastrously not defending Coleman's gifts from wealthy businessmen swept across the internet. Finally, MSNBC points this statistic out:
Oh good, more attack ads! Not in politics—in the cutthroat world of soup. As we newly poor Americans gather our last remaining pennies from our decimated retirement accounts, hitchhike to the grocery store, and head for the soup aisle to ponder what watery concoction can best momentarily quiet our growling bellies, marketers are more determined than ever to ensure you pick their cheap concoction above their competitors'. So they're running ads savaging rivals like Progresso and McDonald's who are just wrong for America:
Some shadowy nonprofit is running ads accusing John McCain of having cancer. Which is true and actually maybe relevant (the fact that John McCain will be America's oldest president ever is certainly more relevant than Obama's house party with Mr. Ayers). The groups behind the ads are apparently run by nutty lefty filmmaker Robert Greenwald and Howard Dean's brother, and the ads feature doctors (with stethoscopes and stuff) saying that cancer is really bad and might kill John McCain. As an underhanded dirty smear, it at least has the advantage of being, you know, 100% demonstrably true! But still. The ads fail, miserably, by not pointing out explicitly that should McCain die in office, he'd be replaced by Sarah Palin. That is the scary thing here! No one would care if old man McCain died and was replaced by someone with half a fucking brain. Anyway, controversy!!
This ridiculous gun-owning man whose voice sounds like Keith Olbermann's crappy Bill O'Reilly impression, is concerned that Obama will tax his guns and ammo, which has something to do with gas prices. Obama voted to ban deer-hunting ammunition! "Where is this guy from?" gun guy asks, in what is the single least subtle attempt to paint Obama as a Muslim foreigner ever. (Where is he from? Canada? Saudi Arabia?? San Francisco??) This is a real-life NRA ad that will run in Colorado and New Mexico. Our favorite part is the Dick Cheney-looking guy loading up a rifle as a fat kid stares at him. Enjoy your precious freedoms, assholes!
The Museum of the Moving Image recently launched what is basically our new favorite website: "The Living Room Candidate," a repository of (embeddable!) presidential campaign ads spanning Stevenson v Eisenhower through Obama v McCain. So, so much fun for political and advertising junkies. Also it is the history of how the United States of America killed itself. This ad will make you cry. It's Michael Dukakis responding to unfair attacks from George H. W. Bush. It's also every loser Democrat since Humphrey. Click through to watch. Click to view [Via Radosh]
