Oct 29th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Obama Infomercial
Not going to get a chance to watch it on TV, though I assume it’ll be available on the internet. What did y’all think?
83 Responses to “Obama Infomercial”
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October 29th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Too much like an infomercial. Hope others don’t feel the
same way
October 29th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Home run.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I don’t know but Bill Clinton is giving the weirdest stump speech I’ve ever seen.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Since I’m in GMT-10, I took advantage of the east coast news site reviews to figure out that it was going to be too infomercial-like to sit through. If I get home in time, I may catch the last few minutes of the “live” stump speech.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Slicker than I expected. Maybe too much so. But probably held the undecideds’ interest better than 30 minutes of talking points.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Bill looks like he’s clinically depressed.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
It was pretty clearly not aimed at people who are already going to vote for him (or have already voted for him), but I think that for those who haven’t made a decision yet it will be pretty effective.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
Ta-Nehisi Coates makes a pre-2007 Tom Brady analogy. He is absolutely correct. No mistakes, excellent decisions made, no unnecessary risk, winning ad.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Didn’t see it, but two separate friends–including one a generally-unemotional dude who was planning to not vote–used the phrase “brought me to tears.”
October 29th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
I think it did exactly what Democrats always need to do– show real people with real problems, rather than categories that can be exploited.
Use the phrase “welfare mother” and you’ll incite people to bitterness. Show them an actual mother trying to raise children on welfare, tell them about her problems, and you’ll incite them to compassion.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
Being 28yrs old and a new yorker i naturally abhor cheesy montage-type footage and love the ironic….but sometimes you get a product that reminds you there’s some things out there worth being not only serious about, that actually make you care. as the child of immigrants, at the end when he went into how for every one of us thats successful, there is someone who sacrificed, naturally i started thinking about my parents and yeah, got just a little emotional. i’m a hardcore political junkie, but that kinda reaction has not been elicited in me since i can remember in politics.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
definitely teared me up a few times, to see someone who so genuinely cares about this country, truly live the american dream, it is a great day for this democracy
October 29th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
here’s the link to the infomercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtREqAmLsoA
October 29th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
here is the youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtREqAmLsoA
October 29th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Mehh… I was a little bored of it, but I *still* managed to cry at the end.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I would have used 30 minutes to put McCain’s reputation in the gutter for all eternity, Matt Taibbi-style. But Obama’s all about the positive.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
“as the child of immigrants, at the end when he went into how for every one of us thats successful, there is someone who sacrificed, naturally i started thinking about my parents and yeah, got just a little emotional. i’m a hardcore political junkie, but that kinda reaction has not been elicited in me since i can remember in politics.”
Exactly how I feel. Sometimes I’m embarassed admitting it, but the fact that I’m the son of immigrants, and Obama is the son of an immigrant, is a big reason I’m voting for him.
Also, the production was incredible. The perfect, seamless transition from tape to live blew my mind.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I thought it was a bit much. Intrade did too. The only good thing is it lets obama frame the narrative for the remaining days.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
It reminded me of those documentary style pieces Chris does for ESPN. The style is always the same, you know it’s going to get to you in the end, and it does. Very effective.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Watching Clinton/Obama. It took 20 minutes but Obama finally has the Big Dawg smiling and laughing.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
I saw only the end of it (got home from work about 7:25), and it was followed immediately by a McCain attack add. The contrast was almost unbelieveable. The end of Obama’s 30 minutes, I think, would make it very hard for anyone to swallow the bilge that the McCain campaign threw up there. By contrast, it makes Obama look presidential and McCain look mean and desperate.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:00 am
I’m more used to long closers, because that fits the British model which started 20 years ago with the ten-minute Kinnock film (which Biden cribbed from). Definitely used the infomercial format, but it was all about tying Obama to the people in the profiles. Same values, same priorities, same experiences.
The production was quite something. I’d like to know the cameras they were using for the live bit, because they made the cablenewsers’ live feeds look crappy.
(Yeah, Clinton was like the 2008 Peyton Manning.)
October 30th, 2008 at 12:00 am
I thought that the ad was rock-solid and utterly unassailable. Obama carried on the theme of the campaign being about us, not about him. Filled with policy specifics, limited rhetorical flourishes, and a revaliing sketch of Obama’s personality, it should be effective with undecideds.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:08 am
I watched the intro online, so I didn’t see the live bit. The video was amazing. I didn’t cry but I certainly felt choked up a little near the end. Of course it was cheesy and obviously not targeted too the political junkies. But I think it will work well on the type of person who is an undecided voter, and it will definitely personalize him for people who are freaking out over all the slanders.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:08 am
I would call it an emotio-mercial. It is hard to find content or policy, this was all about emotion. It was about making the last argument to the heart, not the mind.
Note, that the Republicans appeal to instinct, which is all reaction. There is no thought, or rather no thinking with Republicans.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:13 am
I tried to watch but the bull puckey got so deep,so fast that I decided to give my cat a brazilian wax instead. At least the scenery was better.
Only thing they missed was having Patti Labelle sing the National Anthem and have Oprah give away some Ipods. I guess that comes after the coronation, er,inaugural.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:14 am
The ad was aimed at middle class voters, particularly women and seniors, in swing states like Ohio, New Mexico, Missouri and Florida. I thought the spot did a fantastic job connecting with the attitudes, feelings and values of middle class Americans, with a series of moving vignettes of people struggling with the challenges of day to day life: health care costs, depleted retirement funds, insecure jobs and dislocation, education challenges.
Obama also did his usual great job fusing themes of hard work and personal responsibility with an understanding of the constructive role government can play, and calls for national unity and personal commitment to solving problems. The vignettes were used to motivate Obama’s introduction of policy proposals, but the proposals were presented in a low-key way without a lot of fanfare. There was almost no partisanship in the ad, with the focus entirely on Obama’s own positive message.
Obama was the narrator of the program, speaking directly into the camara at some points, and narrating the vignettes at other points. It felt less like an infomercial than a short documentary on the challenges of life in contemporary America. It had a subdued and quiet feeling, with a sweet but somewhat pensive and melancholy score. There was something simple and restrained about the tableaux, like a Shaker cabinet.
Obama presented a vision of America as a place filled with responsible, hard-working people, and devoted parents and grandparents, who have been ill-served by bad and incompetent government that is sapping their strength and threatening their way of life – but who keep on working and are still hopeful that a better day is coming. Reagan’s famous commercial told the viewer “it’s morning in America again”. This one said, “It’s almost morning in America again – just before daybreak.”
Elections are won in the center, and a crucial test is which candidate “understands the problems of people like me.” Obama has clearly won that battle.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:16 am
I thought it was pitch perfect.
More than that, I thought what it represented was masterful. What we are witnessing for the first time is a candidate who is orchestrating the narrative in the last days of this campaign, not reacting to it. First the Powell endorsement, then this. Day by day they keep sucking all the air out of McCain’s campaign and just by the power of contrasts, show him up to be the bitter peevish old man he is.
Both Gore and Kerry ran Clinton style campaigns. In the final weeks of the campaign they were at the mercy of the media narrative, reacting to it not controlling it. This was actually the model used successfully in 1992 by Clinton as anyone who has watched the “War Room” can attest. Clinton’s 1992 campaign was all about rapid RESPONSE. It worked for them in that day and age. But as we learned from Gore and Clinton it is simply not enough to just respond to the media, especially the tawdry hostile media faced by Gore.
What we are watching in the final weeks of this campaign is quite simply the most masterful orchestration of a media narrative by any campaign ever. Obama has been on message since the Iowa caucus through thick and thin. The election isn’t over until its over. But for the first time in a long time I feel like I’m watching a campaign leave everything on the field as it were. And it feels good.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:22 am
I could not watch John McLoser for 1 minute.
I had no trouble watching this. What else is there to say?
October 30th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Extremely boring stuff.
Putting a bunch of sob stories in front of the camera rubs me the wrong way. I want some hard policy. And I think the country wants hard policy too.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:28 am
I do have a couple nitpicks:
- The anecdotes weren’t well integrated into the discussions of policy. “These old people can’t afford prescription drugs. I like solar power!”
- After 25 mintues of soft focus and calm explanations, having an explicit “get out and vote for me! YAY!!!!” rally at the end was weird. I understand that they wanted to show that people are enthusiastic about this guy, but the tone of the rally probably should have been different.
- Obama said “as President…” repeatedly. When the main criticism of the infomercial will surely be that it’s presumptuous, I would have gone with “if elected President, I will…” I understand that the “as President…” construction is designed to get people to think of someone who “doesn’t look like the guys on the currency” as President, but, I think you do that elsewhere, not here.
That said, it was a pretty brilliant compilation of his greatest hits. The stuff about his mom was very moving — I think that’ll really hit home — without being cheesy. And good amounts of policy detail, too. And heck, even the brief testimony about Biden was on point. So it was a great job.
One thing that will probably get overlooked about it — and the one good purpose that the rally at the end did serve — is that it’s not only making a case to undecideds; it’s trying to re-energize his base too. I think that’s also why he’s going on Maddow and TDS as well. Viewers of those shows are not exactly likely to be undecided, but the one way Obama can lose at this point is if something awful happens at the last minute and there’s no pushback from his side… he wants to make sure that doesn’t happen.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:30 am
It was a bit warm and fuzzy–a half hour ad. Answered Joe, laid out the specifics one more time.
By the way, does McCain have any specifics, except the same tax policy as Bush’s? Can anyone tell anyone? A spending freeze? 10 bill/mo into perpetuity in Iraq? Does anyone know? Has anyone put it to McCain?
Anyway people who like American stories; people who want to hear specific policy goals–it’s in there.
Meanwhile, after having his football game interupted with ads on health care, J Mc K was concerned that the most important election of our time might delay the World Series which was already delayed for 2 days anyway. I mean…god forbid, John McCain doesn’t get to bed on time because his favorite sports game ends half hour later.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:39 am
I tried to watch but the bull puckey got so deep,so fast that I decided to give my cat a brazilian wax instead. At least the scenery was better.
heh, I laughed so hard at this line I almost cried. Richard, you’ve touched me in ways an Obama ad never could have. Thank you, my friend
October 30th, 2008 at 12:52 am
These things are designed in air tight laboratories by teams of highly trained specialists to elicit your emotional reactions. You know this going in, and it still gets to you. I decided to cast aside my cynicism and go with it. The parts where he talked about his father, and his mother dying of cancer got to me.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:01 am
It makes the point that for all the BS about Obama being ‘aloof’ and ‘the one’, McCain has run a campaign which has been incredibly disconnected from the electorate, and presented as such. Can you think of a McCain moment where he has acted like a man of the people? It’s been a ‘give me the presidency, damnit, you jerks’ campaign. It’s been really self-centred and disconnected, which is why Joe T. Plumber comes across as such a weird caricature of an Everyman figure.
Say what you like about Sarah the Moosekiller, but she’s drawing five-figure crowds while McCain can’t fill a kindergarten playground. Now, that’s all about her, too, but it plays very differently.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:03 am
People are way more sentimental than I realized. Some crappy cheesy music and shots of containers of pills and you get all misty? I was mostly creeped out. I’m just glad I voted today before I saw the commercial, or I probably couldn’t have voted for him.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:11 am
He was poorly miced.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:24 am
about as well-done as it could have been.
beautifully crafted, targeted at exactly those he needed to address…
as political messaging, it doesn’t get any better than this.
it’s like the best stuff that michael deaver did for reagan. while i hated reagan and always tried not to be touched, i always had to give it to deaver: he knew what he was doing, and he could pull at a viewer’s heartstrings, even if one was resistant.
obama’s ad compares favorably to anything deaver ever did for reagan.
and while i generally have thought that obama has been wasting his money on one lame, insipid commercial after another lame, insipid commercial, this one definitely works the way it was meant to work.
it mystifies me that anyone would nitpick this and try to diminish the quality of the work.
it’s a campaign ad, not roman polanski’s newest endeavor about god knows what.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Asher: “People are way more sentimental than I realized… I’m just glad I voted today before I saw the commercial, or I probably couldn’t have voted for him.”
so one 30-minute infomercial literally changed your vote in the presidential election, and you’re calling us sentimental?
October 30th, 2008 at 1:48 am
i initially cringed at the thought of an infomercial (and cringed at mccain’s cackling about it)
but man… i was moved. it was GOOD. cheesy? yeah sure it was. but after looking at bush’s stinkin smirk for the past 8 years, someone talking about hope and you’re awesome! feels pretty damn good.
my boyfriend is a total cynic and he got kind of choked up. lol.
a couple of thoughts:
-i appreciated the fisher price policy discussion in the video and the stump speech. he laid everything out in basic terms and hey, if you want more info, the pdfs are on the website. or heck, just call up the campaign or email them for more info lol.
-obama’s energy is completely different from mccain and from palin
-mccain’s “YET” ad is weird. he’s saying obama is a dangerous socialist terrorist… but he could be president in a couple years, just not right now? that makes no sense lol.
-after i watched the video, i caught the tail end of the obama florida speech. shocked by the amount of ppl at the rally given the time. i felt like i could feel the energy through the tv. right after the speech ended, they cut to mccain grumbling about obama being a friend to PLO and terrorism… and it just felt nasty. the differences were pretty stark.
I’m with Chris Matthews on this one… what else do people want at this point??? lol
October 30th, 2008 at 1:54 am
I called family in PA. They loved it. And they vote.
October 30th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Um, no policy? It was right there in superimposed white bullet points while he was saying it at the same time. About nine fresh-sounding, good policy points. Don’t start with that, O subtle trolls.
This is a good time to be reminded that we still have a capacity for patriotic tears. An awful lot of work lies ahead, but I’m tempted to volunteer to help with some of those superimposed white bullet points. No kool-aid, just am.
October 30th, 2008 at 2:15 am
Like Mean Dean, I thought the TDS/Maddow thing was interesting, considering Yglesias’ post on Maddow/Obama.
October 30th, 2008 at 2:48 am
so one 30-minute infomercial literally changed your vote in the presidential election, and you’re calling us sentimental?
I was very on the fence, and this kinda confirmed all the things I don’t like about Obama.
October 30th, 2008 at 3:29 am
“I’m just glad I voted today before I saw the commercial, or I probably couldn’t have voted for him.”
This HAS to be a joke. This is like during the primaries when someone on The Atlantic blog wouldn’t support Obama because someone called him a moron.
October 30th, 2008 at 3:41 am
Asher: “I was very on the fence, and this kinda confirmed all the things I don’t like about Obama.
right, and that is rational and logical–how?
55: This HAS to be a joke. This is like during the primaries when someone on The Atlantic blog wouldn’t support Obama because someone called him a moron.
That was Petey. And I assure you it was no joke.
October 30th, 2008 at 5:08 am
I understand some of the risk in using this format, as Steve Clemens suggests. That aside, there appears to be a clear intent to speak over the tit-for-tat of the 30-second ad buys and push his narrative and agenda to republican leaning independents, who have yet to vote, and who know the tit-for-tat is BS but haven’t been made comfortable with Obama in those types of exchange.
It is also a big move in the last week, that will invoke McCain to readjust and throw him off a little in the final days.
I think on the whole it was a well targeted presentation. It was well crafted to invoke certain populations to see themselves in the piece. It was meant to be about Americans doing what Americans do. Obama presence was as a member of that population and a facilitator. He knows them, sees them and shares their values and concerns. He was not an elite socialist redistributing the hard-earn wealth of working Americans. The piece presented him as helping to realize their dreams.
I have to say there was “one second” in the whole piece that really threw me off. Why, when in the last couple of days as the Republicans have set their teeth on Joe Biden’s quote of “Tax breaks for those making less than $100,000,” would Barack change his rhetoric from $250,000 to $200,000? This will read as a very conspicuous change and I am afraid a major blunder.
October 30th, 2008 at 5:35 am
It literally made me cum.
(well I may have helped a little bit since
I touch myself anytime I see or hear Obama)
October 30th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Dan Kervick thought it was a home run and manage to work in several more cliches in his further comment. Unfortunately for him Kent followed up with the sublime ‘pitch perfect’, an inane and vaguely anti-Clinton recount of past campaigns and finished with always powerful closing ‘best campaign ever’ to capture the coveted Obombie award for this thread.
Kent has served noticed and the rest of you will have to up your game.
October 30th, 2008 at 5:59 am
The anecdotes weren’t well integrated into the discussions of policy. “These old people can’t afford prescription drugs. I like solar power!”
I was starting to wonder if I was the only one who noticed this. I expected a segue into his health insurance plan at that point. When he talking about energy instead, that’s when he started to lose me. I paid enough attention to notice that he did this a second time several minutes later, again shifting from an anecdote about the difficulties of a particular family to an unrelated policy proposal.
Maybe it’s just me, but that sort of discontinuity really bothers me.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:02 am
Beautifully done piece of documentary, and I say that as someone who doesn’t like either campaign commercials or infomercials.
The citizen bios were well paced and respectful rather than maudlin. They got to the gut of the fears that are driving the vote this election: constant worry about medical costs, expenses eating away at your sense of security, and the stark promise of poverty when you retire.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Barack’s Ad, A Report from a Philly Bar…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/29/211031/71/572/646258
October 30th, 2008 at 7:48 am
If you are a low information voter and this is the first introduction to the candidate, it seals the deal.
I think it was as effective as the half hour ad Bill Clinton ran in 1992.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:54 am
@ Thomas, #47:
Without trying to explain Biden’s numbers (maybe the $150K was about Filing Individually, not as a couple?), Obama’s numbers are exactly the same as they’ve been for as long as I’ve been paying attention to the general-election tax argument (which is to say, months at least): no tax increase for families earning less than $250K, and a tax cut for families earning less than $200K. I can see how switching between the two numbers could confuse, but (despite, naturally, what McCain says) there is no alteration or inconsistency there. Comparing current tax rates and Obama’s plan, there is a $50K income interval from $200-250K in which taxpayers do basically the same on the current plan or Obama’s, with the tiny minority of taxpayers who earn amounts above that interval paying less under the current plan and the vast majority of taxpayers who earn below that interval paying less under Obama’s plan.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Home run.
October 30th, 2008 at 8:03 am
I had a quick jolt of insight when the Dkos comments mentioned people who think Obama is a Moslem because his father was a Moslem.
Think back about the photo of Obama’s father in the middle of the commerical. Note how quickly it goes by, but how Barack states so clearly that he only met his father for an hour of his life when he was ten, and was raised by his mother, and then how she worked to educate him and worried about paying for cancer treatments.
I’ve never read O’s full bio and that was the first photo of his father I’ve ever seen. No mention of religion at all, but if you knew little about Obama senior, a real eye-catcher . . . and it made the point about religion sharp and clear, without using the word.
O, you are one sharp dude.
And like I said, I don’t like political commercials. At the end, though, I was pacing back and forth across the room, telling my wife: “He’s going to do it. He is going> to do it.”
I wanna be watching the first time President Obama visits the Lincoln memorial.
October 30th, 2008 at 8:07 am
I appreciate how many of you crave the hard, unsentimental, steely discipline of policy proposals applied cold. But this is a political campaign, and not every kind of successful communication is aimed at that level of cognition. Clearly this ad aimed to move people, and also to communicate something about Obama himself, and what kind of president he will be, apart from the current agenda he hopes to implement.
I believe the title of the piece was “American Stories”, and part of the point was to bring things down from the aggregate level to the personal and individual level, and to remind people that in discussions of economic problems and the policies needed to address them, we are not just talking about a mass macroeconomic blob of social dysfunction, but individual people. Behind “X number of people are uninsured” or “Y number of people have insufficient retirement income” or “many Americans do not have enough time in their day to do everything they need to do”, there is the fact that this guy is uninsured and thiscouple has insufficient retirement income and this woman does not have enough time in her day. And these are good and likable people, so we should care about them.
People know Obama is a smart guy, and have heard the policy ideas he has put forward for about 21 months. But he has succeeded in large part because he has gotten people to trust him, and that was what they were trying to bring home last night. They wanted people to take away some strong personal impressions about Obama: that he sees ordinary Americans and understands their stories; thst he has a similar story that shows he is one of us; he will tell us what he thinks; that he will listen; that he will invite participation.
October 30th, 2008 at 8:28 am
I was mostly creeped out.
Grow up, Asher.
You know what creeps me out? Government sponsored use of torture. You know what doesn’t? Political ads meant to appeal to undecided voters during unsteady economic times.
What’s with all the delicate flowers among us? They’re deathly afraid of attacking Republicans. They don’t like well-done ads that touch on people’s concerns. You wonder what’s going to satisfy this people.
October 30th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Why…would Barack change his rhetoric from $250,000 to $200,000? This will read as a very conspicuous change and I am afraid a major blunder.
Actually, Obama has long been promising that no one under $250K would have their taxes <increased. The tax decreases applied to people earning less than $150K. So if he’s now saying $200K that’s more people, not less, seeing a tax decrease.
October 30th, 2008 at 9:01 am
It was like an Obama speech put into pictures. Full of people hurting but hoping. Tales of Patton’s army and sick mother. Honourable mentions of every relevant racial demographic (sans A-rabs), with special attention paid to the pudgy white majority. Stories, slick transitions, technicolor imagery of bleak american life.
October 30th, 2008 at 9:08 am
“It was like an Obama speech put into pictures. Full of people hurting but hoping. Tales of Patton’s army and sick mother. Honourable mentions of every relevant racial demographic (sans A-rabs), with special attention paid to the pudgy white majority. Stories, slick transitions, technicolor imagery of bleak american life.”
wow, that perfectly sums it up. It was very 1930’s America. The whole thing rubbed me the wrong way.
October 30th, 2008 at 9:22 am
wow, that perfectly sums it up. It was very 1930’s America. The whole thing rubbed me the wrong way.
When Arab Americans and young urban professionals become undecided swing voters, politicians will have more infomercials directed at them. thehova, people like you (and me, for that matter) have already chosen sides.
October 30th, 2008 at 9:30 am
“When Arab Americans and young urban professionals become undecided swing voters, politicians will have more infomercials directed at them.”
Tyro:
Arab-Americans make up a good 5% of Michigan voters, a state that, until 2 months, looked like it might be hard for Obama to win. They also make up 2% of voters in Ohio, Florida etc. Many of them are undecided voters; a majority of them voted Bush in 2000, but have since tended towards the democrats. The problem isn’t that they are not an attractive voter bloc, but that no-one wants to court them, because this would mean publicly aligning yourself with arabs. The republicans can’t afford to do this, because their race-baiting would lose its credibility. Obama hasn’t openly courted them, because he is still trying to discredit the accusation that he isn’t one of them.
October 30th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I thought it was nicely done, and I think it accomplished what it needed to do at this stage, i.e., reassured anyone with lingering doubts about voting for him that Obama is not some wild-eyed socialist but a thoughtful, measured, i.e., safe, choice.
October 30th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Exactly right. I have friends and coworkers on the right who are afraid of what Obama is going to do with tax policy. But his tax policy will only affect them in positive ways. At the end of the day, they simply don’t trust him or the Democrats to enact what they say. Some people could be won over in this respect (although some would most certainly not.)
October 30th, 2008 at 10:06 am
By the way, I’m pretty cynical when it comes to politics, but there are times when its helpful for the soul to put that aside. Last nights ad was one of those times. The story about family with the wife with rheumatoid arthritis ought to touch any reasonable person’s heart.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I didn’t see it, due to time-zone and slow-internet issues, but…
I was recently talking to a friend and we were getting outraged again remembering the way that Bush had squandered not only international goodwill, but also American patriotic do-goodism immediately after 9/11. That he could have created, as others have mentioned, a volunteer homeland security force or a new version of the peace corps that would have attracted college grads and other in droves.
From what I hear from others, it sounds like Obama is uniquely capable of getting something of that urge back. The enthusiam for his campaign has to go somewhere, and I hope he funnels it into some kind of workable domestic (or international) volunteer program.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:14 am
It was like an Obama speech put into pictures. Full of people hurting but hoping. Tales of Patton’s army and sick mother. Honourable mentions of every relevant racial demographic (sans A-rabs), with special attention paid to the pudgy white majority. Stories, slick transitions, technicolor imagery of bleak american life.
So, does that mean you liked it? Since the images were of the people Obama wants to help, it sounds like it was pretty effective.
Oh, and nice touch of pointless agism, there. Middle-aged and elderly people in every society tend to be “pudgy.” It is a common aspect of getting older. Sorry if you don’t like looking at people like that, but they do constitute the majority of America’s population. Do you wear a blindfold walking down the street so you don’t have to look at pudgy people?
October 30th, 2008 at 11:21 am
wow, that perfectly sums it up. It was very 1930’s America. The whole thing rubbed me the wrong way.
Uh, could you explain why it rubbed you the wrong way? There is a general agreement that we are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, which did happen in the 1930s. The decline in living standards has hit working class whites very hard, they are making voting decisions based on this issue, and they still constitute the largest voting block in the population.
Also, if someone had made a film like this in the 1930s, most likely there would have been no interview with a African-American family, and likely no Blacks, Latinos, or Asians anywhere in the footage. All of the immigrants pictured would have been whites from Eastern and Southern Europe.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Actually, I did like it. I thought it was effective, like an Obama speech. Even though it ticked all the boxes, it had an air of sincerity (like an Obama speech). It was merely an observation, a summary. A more favourable, less cyincal, way of saying “ticks all the boxes” would be “inclusive”, which is one of the biggest strengths of the Obama campaign.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
it might be helpful for some (i would recommend all) to watch the pbs american experience biography of lyndon johnson. there are many similarities between republicans of the 1960s and the 2000s. johnson was able to pass some of the most important legislation this country has ever seen despite falling for the republican bellicosity demanding proof of military toughness against communists and being sucked into the warmongering morass of viet nam.
but ignore viet nam (if you can) and pay attention to the domestic stuff. this bio gave me a better feel for the difficulties of passing groundbreaking legislation.
this was running on my local pbs station immediately after the obama half hour. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/36_l_johnson/
October 30th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Thank god. If you had watched a political infomercial instead of pro basketball, I would really worry for your sanity, and your soul.
That said, I’m going to check it out online, too. But Suns-Spurs was a great game last night and there was no way I was turning it off to watch Obama.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
bob5540 Says:
Actually, Obama has long been promising that no one under $250K would have their taxes <increased. The tax decreases applied to people earning less than $150K. So if he’s now saying $200K that’s more people, not less, seeing a tax decrease.
Obama has different tax cuts for individuals vs. married couples. No couple under $250K gets their taxes increased, but individuals get an increase if they make over $200K–see here. However, in the infomercial Obama was referring specifically to families, and Obama’s spokesman explains in this NY Post article that families get a tax decrease if they make less than $200K:
“No family making less than $250,000 will see their tax increases one cent. And if your family makes less than $200,000 – as 95 percent of workers and their families do – you’ll get a tax cut.”
The NY Post article also accuses Biden of making a gaffe for saying the tax cuts go to people making $150K, but if you’re correct that individuals start getting a tax decrease at that threshold, then that’s probably what he was talking about (do you have a source for that number other than Biden’s comment?)
October 30th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I’m amazed by the incredible amount of public interest in Sarah Palin. Good or bad, she’s become somewhat of a pop icon. People are dressing like her to be and/or mock her all at the same time.
For instance, I found this video on dressing like Palin:
http://www.mindbites.com/lesson/668-how-to-dress-like-sarah-palin
October 30th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
it was amazing, but i just hope to God that he lives up to all his promises, if elected president.
May God bless him,
he seem real and an honest man.
I really hope he wins the election.
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