Over the next few months I'll be posting some of the best US political commercials from the presidential candidates. This is a three minute video promoting Mitt Romney. It's quite powerful. They do these schmalzy ads brilliantly in the US, in a way that we just can't seem to do. Good, you may say, but this sort of ad is quite uplifting in its own way. For more Mitt Romney campaign ads click
HERE.
You still can't polish a turd.
ReplyDeleteJust posted myself on the bizarre Wikipedia wars some of the Presidential candidates are involved with and our mild, UK version.
ReplyDeletetim - Iain said "schmaltzy ads". He didn't say "schmaltzy political ads".
ReplyDelete"... generally (and thankfully) there's very little market for this kind of thing here." There speaks British spite.
And if there's "little market for this kind of thing here", why are American TV shows so popular?
Worst thing I've ever seen. That would put British people off voting for the candidate featured. But then I suppose WE aren't a nation of total morons.
ReplyDeleteBetter to post the John Kerry Student Tazer vid, just to remind everybody how they treat hecklers over there.
ReplyDeleteWalter Wolfgang was lucky!
Sorry Iain,
ReplyDeleteBut after Mitt the twit said his son's volunteering for his campaign was equivalent service to their country as other's in Iraq, he been out of court. Dems and Repubs found that little gem just a bit hard to swallow.
So sorry, I won't be watching Mitt's infomercial, ta very much.
If you showed this shit on British telly ("I love y'all, wanna hug ya") we'd just piss ourselves laughing. I'm quite glad about that.
ReplyDeleteI hope that we never have this type of election broadcast in the UK. Do you want to see a presidential-style election campaign?
ReplyDeleteVery un-British, Iain.
[sighs]
ReplyDeleteIt's actually just a run-of-the-mill wheatfields and fluttering flags and skylines and mountains and artificial diversity socialist realism video that Americans get "treated" to every couple of years. The only thing significant about it is that he wasn't shown with his family in all-denim near a wooden-rail fence somewhere in rural New England.
The real America is not so thoroughly splendid. On the one hand we have beautiful scenery, a mostly hard-working population, tremendous talent, good natural resources, and an incomparable political tradition. On the other we have acres and acres of identical stucco houses, crumbling innercities covered with graffiti, a massive and overpowering Federal government, universities that are fortresses of insanity, and a hideous pop culture that has successfully turned out a generation of Philistines.
It's hard to generalize about America, though, because it's so varied a place. It's not so hard to generalize about Mitt Romney, however, he's a family man who knows how to run a business but is more interested in getting elected than taking a moral stand. 2008 is going to be another lesser evils year...
dynamite - Oh, you're so superior and amused and that is why you're sinking to third world status. Because you can't learn lessons from "the colonies".
ReplyDeleteIan notes: "I hope that we never have this type of election broadcast in the UK." How about, 10 years ago, Tony Blair visiting schools with his The Joker grin, promising "Eduycation, eduycation, eduycation" - or Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda for One Worlderism? Soft focus on the vulpine Tony,smiling at all the children whose futures he was going to shaft by providing some of the largest classes in the world with some of the most inept teachers. If Blair had had access at that time to whoever made that commercial for Romney ...
Remember Blair, in all his grinning horror, "riding" a bike (he couldn't ride a bike and seemed unfamiliar with the concept) in Amsterdam as a new "European style" leader in, I think, 1997? GRINNED. That passed for slick style. Give me American slickness any day because at least it makes sense and ties together. Blair suddenly ineptly on a bicycle in Amsterdam? Why? Amateur Night in Dixie.
Like David Cameron on a sled in Norway, wearing a parka and posing with a couple of photogenic huskies. And David Cameron pretending to clean grafitti with a brand new paintbrush held photogenically up against an already cleaned up wall.
God, you're so tenth rate!
Mitt Romney is too powerful to have done such.
Blair's self-serving photo ops that never even attempted to address Britain. Just Tony.
Give me Mitt Romney and the American style.
I hate this inference that if only we were still running the world, everything would be handled so much better. We had 350 years and we did it well, with style and grace, but nothing, and no empire, lasts forever. America does it well in our times.
Let's have more of Blair's soft focus ads 11 years later when children have gone through "school" without learning to read and write with teachers and "teachers' assistants", whatever the hell they are, and they are still behind not just the United States and Australia (and probably all European nations), but well behind Singapore and Malaysia.
America looks to the sun. The British look to envy, spite and hissing jealousy. Losers.
Why cannot they remember our 350 years as winners and how we shaped the world? America now holds the baton. Why be so angry?
Some of the more blinkered bigoted types should understand firstly that the US is a foreign country.
ReplyDeleteWe understand each others language, but this fact has no other importance other then a very obvious convenience.
Secondly British people would love this sort of thing almost as much as the Americans. Remember this is the country that not only likes American films and comedy it positively LOVES BIG BROTHER.
I guess about 75% of the British male population would be happy if they had nothing but 24 hour football. 75% of women would be quite contented with 24 hour soap opera's.
Part of our British disease is that we think we are superior when in fact we are fast becoming one of the most sheep like superficial and morally bankrupt nation on the planet.
You may laugh at Americans, you have that right. But the real joke is on you lot made vivid and real by the oppressive nature of every day existence in modern day New Fascist Britain.
It just reminds me of that clip on "The Day Today" that was supposed to be played in times of crisis, you know the one - "This is our country, and everything's OK..."
ReplyDeleteI think the point's already been made that this kind of campaign simply wouldn't work in the UK beacuse we're so much more cynical/less gullible than the yanks, and thank goodness for that!
This site is loading like a dog. Time to ditch the money-grabbing and self-puffing gadgets in the side bar.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, it's been happening for so long, you obviously couldn't care less. Taking the readers for granted?
Verity, gutted and not a little baffled to learn I'm sinking into third world status. I'm sure there are many things we can learn from our American cousins, I doubt that the victory of cheap saccharine sentiment is one of them.
ReplyDeleteVerity says:"Why be so angry?"
ReplyDeleteOh Verity I ask that very question with every one of your posts....
"They do these schmalzy ads brilliantly in the US.."
ReplyDeleteSurely this is a contradiction in terms ? If something is 'schmaltzy' how can it be any good at all ?
I agree with Verity!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous and Dynamite - This is a country that voted Tony Blair in THREE TIMES on a wave of schmalz. How dare you criticise the Americans because they happen to make successful commercials FOR THEIR OWN COUNTRY (the commercial wasn't for export - duh), when the voters voted for a cheap 10th rater like Blair? Give me flag-waving and pride in one's country and history and values any day over someone like Blair who was going to change the world. The first time in recorded history that someone was going to "change the world" without actually having a vision.
ReplyDeleteAmericans export their sentimentality very successfully. Ours, it seems, doesn't travel as well as our films are all failures - bar a couple - overseas. (Actually, in Britain, too. The audience seems to prefer American products. Gosh. I wonder why.)
It's the spite that irritates me. It's the assumption that we are the king over the water. The sneering at the way Americans are, essentially running the world. I think they're doing a bloody good job, and I think we did a bloody good job for 350 years. NOTHING LASTS FOREVER AND THAT INCLUDES EMPIRES.
Grow up and be glad it's the freest country in the world at the helm and not China or Russia or some islamic nutjobs.
(I also hate people who type in capitals, but I am just so angry and there wasn't any purple ink.)