A Second Hand Conjecture

Boy, I love this charming ad for the Washington state secret tax on the poor lottery.

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It occurs to me that the sequence of cocktails is the best political indicator I know of on election night. In 2004 I was attending a Democratic election party and early on everyone was drinking wine and martinis in stemware, or beer and soda in tall glasses. The ambiance befit the beverages: general levity and young merriment. Sporty coquettish girls with wide white toothy smiles dominated all conversations.

But when it became clear that the exit polls predicting a Kerry victory were wildly mistaken, and field reports were coming in on cell phones of Karl Rove’s successful mobilization effort, it wasn’t long before the assembled Democrats had exchanged their drinks for short glasses filled with dark brown fluids. To match the new taste for scotch and bourbon whiskey, the sporty girls seemed to disappear and old men began to dominate conversations.

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So, did you enjoy the much discussed post-American world order? Hope you didn’t miss it. Surely it didn’t lack for advertising.

But if you did happen to step out for a moment, we just lived through the end of market capitalism, the death of the dollar, the collapse of American power, the cultural and political atrophy of the West, the rise of Eastern dictatorships to world leadership, and petrocracy as the vanguard political philosophy of the future.

Bill Emmott notices that a lot of this isn’t exactly plausible in historical context, and that with the collapse in the price of oil, a strengthening dollar, an even worse European recession and the unavailability of predicted competitive alternatives to American power…the post-post-American moment may be upon us.

(HT: Thomas P.M. Barnett)

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I’ve been seeing this amusing banner ad for Obama popping up all over the web. Given the behavior of some of ACORN’s representatives, it might not be an illegitimate question.

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Like so many others, Elizabeth Johnson is out for that Palin look.
Sarah always has such choice footwear…and eyewear retailers are getting explicit in their advertising.
In case you were curious, this is where you end up when your anti-Palin hysteria finally hits rock bottom.
Finally, the sad sight of an ideologically indoctrinated childhood, at an anti-Palin protest in Alaska.

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For two weeks, as John McCain’s national polls first rose above Obama and then solidified there, Democrats protested that the popular vote was irrelevant. Look to the state polls said they, in a sensible but amusingly opportunistic argument for the electoral college (for those of us who recall the venom of 2000). Alas, this was a comfort built upon something of an illusion, given that few state polls were available after the Republican convention. That’s begun to change of course, and for the first time Rasmussen has given McCain a slim electoral college advantage.

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Another splendid ad for SOSGeorgia. I say again, in the conceptual appeal to world opinion, the Georgians are simply better at this sort of thing than their far better financed adversaries.

(Carpetblog)

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The way to travel. (via Adverbox)

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Jon Stewart hilariously ridicules the notion that McCain’s advertising contains hidden racist and sexist messages.

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David Gergen is the latest to detect hidden racist messages in McCain advertising.

I’d say that there’s two types of voters on this issue. The sort who sighs at an “obvious” effort to invent an artificial racism for McCain, and those who get angry at an “obvious” subterfuge to create a climate of racial fear against Obama. The issue becomes genuinely divisive because neither voter can truly believe the other side is being sincere about their position.

I’m of the former camp. McCain’s advertising is frivolous and trite, but the allegation of racist messaging seems rather plainly to be politically manufactured for defense. Doubly, I find it hard to believe that anyone can take this argument seriously:

…John McCain’s new tactic of associating Barack Obama with oversexed and/or promiscuous young white women.
(TPM via random($foo))

That’s a problem. Because it’s just as “obvious” to the person who sees this racial context as credible, that I can’t possibly be blind to it. This is the environment in which things can get nasty.

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Perhaps Mr. Riley’s allegation in Newsday that the McCain “Celeb” ad exposed some sort of crypto-racist subterfuge, is more widely shared among Obama’s media advocates than one might have assumed. For the queen of that kingdom evidently shares the sentiment:

The ad gave us an uneasy feeling that the McCain campaign was starting up the same sort of racially tinged attack on Mr. Obama that Republican operatives, some of whom work for Mr. McCain now, ran against Harold Ford, a black candidate for Senate in Tennessee in 2006. That assault, too, began with videos juxtaposing Mr. Ford with young, white women.
(The New York Times via Sister Toldjah)

Everything I wrote about Mr. Riley’s views earlier can naturally be reapplied here to the New York Times. However, there are three additional thoughts which occur to me:

1. The New York Times, at least in its editorial capacity, may be becoming the surrogate response and marketing team for the Obama campaign. As noted earlier today, to the point that it appears the Times is even developing the campaign’s slogans and advertising approach.

2. If that is so, would it not be better for Mr. McCain to merely recast his entire campaign as a contest between himself and the editorial board of the Times, bypassing Mr. Obama altogether. After all, if victory consists largely of picking the right enemies, that’s a contest that Mr. McCain might actually be able to win. It’s no secret that lately the national paper of record isn’t held in the highest esteem by the nation it records. Furthermore, it seems that the Times as a leading agent for Obama, tends to be ahead of the campaign it supports by about a day. Alacrity might demand a more direct approach by McCain against his “real” opponent.

3. Finally –and this is purely suspicion on my part– does anyone else get the feeling in reading the editorials of the New York Times and others, that there are elements of the press that actually resent the fact that race is not a more significant feature of this campaign? Elements who will actually try to inject it as factor, even without the slightest cause. Also, is there perhaps a more wicked remorse that the opportunities to label Mr. McCain a racist are so disappointingly few?

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Many of you may have seen the Absolut Vodka ad that ran in a Mexican magazine recently in links around the blogosphere. Now the mocking has begun as well. I submit this more historically accurate version of their ad.

While California, Arizona, New Mexico and the rest of the green land may have been “stolen”, from Mexico after the US conquered them, Texas fought for and won its own independence.

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You don’t have to be Colombian for this beautiful advertisement to touch your heart.

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75% of Germans believe that their society is hostile to children. That’s a toxic attitude to combine with an appalling 1.3 children-per-woman fertility rate. Well below the replacement rate, the country is literally dying out over time. To attack the problem, a consortium of German advertising agencies and media firms have launched a €30 million campaign Du bist Deutschland (”You Are Germany”), to try to promote tolerance for children: Video report. What is one to think of a country that hates its own future, and has to be pleaded with to tolerate the only instrument for the perpetuation of its cultural patrimony?

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Fiorana is a new company that is manufacturing blue jeans specially made to accommodate a certain widely admired latina asset. According president Mike Braden, “The Latina body is different in waist and hip structure. When wearing Anglo cut jeans, there is always a fit problem around the waist area.” Laura Martinez is skeptical about the high price ($100 a pair) and the broader ethnic generalization. I guess I was surprised there was such a thing as a “Anglo jeans, ” but if so, I couldn’t be tortured into condemning their tight fit on latina women.

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Barack Obama launches the first nation-wide television advertising campaign (cable tv spot on CNN and MSNBC). Team Hillary is upset about the violation to the DNC Florida campaigning boycott. She’s probably more upset by how strong this ad is.

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Behold, the best ad for fruit flavored condoms you’ll ever see in your lifetime. Very SFW.

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Hillary has been modifying her voice lately. A new TV spot on the economy in California. Soooothing and feminine. Much improved from this.

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Some people are very happy about the Michigan results: media firms. As Ken Wheaton  points out in Advertising Age, with there still being no clear frontrunner for the GOP nom, spending on advertising is about to go through the roof.

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Hyundai is contemplating pulling its Superbowl advertising, citing sudden concerns about US economic indicators. Traditionally ad budgets are the first to go when firms start believing they’re entering a recession. Not the most encouraging news of the day.

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