Who’s afraid of Detroit?
Bad ass.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.
Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.
Not all heroes wear capes.
These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.
We still have time to mess this up!
Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.
Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.
People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.
You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.
It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!
This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.
Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.
If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!
A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.
Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.
if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.
The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.
This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.
It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.
Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.
Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.
Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.
Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll
You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.
Southern Beale
Damn you, WordPress! I just tried to embed the video over at my place and it wouldn’t let me.
JPL
@Southern Beale: go to youtube it’s halftime in america
Villago Delenda Est
Who’s afraid of Detroit?
Mitt fucking Romney.
geg6
If that wasn’t the best Obama ad of the campaign, I don’t know what would be.
As an aside, I thought Clint Eastwood was a GOPer. My John and I couldn’t decide if he was a John Cole (a sane person) or just your typical Republican whore who’d do anything for a buck.
Cacti
This message was not approved by the committee to elect Mitt Romney.
Wag
If the GOP has lost Clint, they’ve lost the election.
russell
pretty words.
we’ll see if the knotheads of the world want to get on board.
Anya
Oh, good. Can’t wait for the inevitable wingnut freakout.
Carolinus
The wingers are really crapping all over the comments for that video.
Violet
Best commercial of the night. Thank you, Clint!
Larkspur
@Southern Beale: Perhaps you have made good use of the margaritas that your refrigerator made for you? (Anyway, I hope so.)
I am not house-sitting at the moment, so I have no access to the television, so go Giants, and also I googled Kelly Clarkson’s antheming and found it to be quite agreeable. I know I should never scan comments at venues with which I am unfamiliar, but I accidentally did, and from among the compliments I saw references about how her singing sucked on account of she is fat. Before long, I expect that in addition to warning our children about not accepting rides from strangers, we are going to warn them about not scanning comments at unvetted sites.
Hmm. In the time I took to type this, I expect the game may be over. Cheers.
Linda Featheringill
That was a sweet commercial. And yes, it is a good ad for Obama.
I also thought that Eastwood was a Republican. But he wasn’t talking the GOP line there.
Spaghetti Lee
@Larkspur:
we are going to warn them about not scanning comments at unvetted sites.
That’s actually a really good idea. And I think the comments section at YouTube and most newspaper sites is the internet equivalent of the white windowless van.
Ajay
Eastwood is a GOPer. He supported McCain and others. However he was/is for gay marriage etc. Regardless, this is a surprise. Only thing missing was Obama’s picture in the commercial.
Make no mistake, if Detroit recovers, GOP will take all the credit.
Ira-NY
Good stuff.
RossinDetroit
Everything sounds dramatic in Clint’s voice. He could make you salute Captain Crunch by reading the ingredients. So yeah, that was very effective. A gutsy play for a car company to buy 2 minutes of S’bowl airtime and not show a whole car.
Linda Featheringill
@Ajay:
They can try. But everybody in the Rust Belt knows who was pushing for Detroit. Talk to Kay about that. She’s been all over the Midwest and talked to people.
Anya
They’re playing the patriotism card — their cars are linked to America.
RossinDetroit
@Linda Featheringill:
The Motor City isn’t without its ‘wingers but everyone knows how close several states came to becoming Flint. And who barely saved all of their asses.
RossinDetroit
Chrysler owns Jeep, which it absorbed from George Romney’s old outfit AMC. Mitt leads the GOP polls by 10 to 20 points here but I expect low turnout. Hell, I may cross over for the day just to vote against that weasel.
Linda Featheringill
Well, the commenters on YouTube certainly view it as a commercial for Obama, much to their delight or dismay as the case may be.
Yutsano
@RossinDetroit:
Well…there’s a couple of finished Grand Cherokees at the end. But the ad wasn’t really about the cars. It was more a “fuck you” to everyone who wrote Detroit off. No wonder the GOP got their delicate fee-fees hurt over it.
suzanne
Loved this ad. Between Clint and Eminem, Detroit’s image is in good hands.
Agree that this felt very prObama.
I have a rather politically unaware and therefore conservative coworker with whom I’ve been talking political and social issues recently, and he said to me the other day, “I think the economy has turned a corner. It just feels different, it feels better, more hopeful.” In spite of his conservatism, I think I’m possibly bringing I’m over to the side of light. We shall see.
RossinDetroit
@Yutsano:
There’s also a recognizable Charger. Yeah, it did have kind of a ‘we’ve got your number’ vibe.
If the ‘wingers think of it as an Obama commercial then it is. For all the right reasons.
Steeplejack
Ugh. I thought that ad was bullshit. Typical jingoistic rah-rah “patriotic” mush: “We Americans are going to come together as one and kick ass!” (Whose?) Almost verging on “Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?! Who’s with me? C’mon!”
Sexing it up with good photography and Eastwood’s voice doesn’t get it over the top.
ETA: Apparently “Detroit” is a dog whistle for right and left.
jackmac
Like others above, my first thought was watching this was that it’s a fantastic Obama ad. My second thought was that this should keep running through November. And third? Clint Eastwood is awesome!
Poopyman
I’m thinkin’ Clint might have done it for Detroit, not Obama. But the effect is the same. Plus the cash doesn’t hurt.
Notice a lot of dog-themed commercials, of which Here Wego is the latest – and cute to boot.
Boudica
I guess I’m in the minority. I hated it. Thought Eastwood looked like a dessicated mummy at the end. And the whole time I’m watching I kept yelling at the TV “except for the Republicans.”
I guess that’s the point you all saw, but I don’t know how many Americans watched that and saw what you saw.
I thought it came across as promoting the bi-partisanship crap that we all know hasn’t worked and ain’t gonna work.
geg6
Steep, dude. Chill. That was the best pro-Obama ad for the great unwashed evah. There’s a reason the wingers are wigging out over it. Pretty fucking funny that Eastwood will now be a RINO persona non grata over it. Are you feeling lucky? Go ahead, make my day, mothafucka.
RossinDetroit
It helps a lot that the ad came on the tail of some good jobs news. That should have sunk in and primed people for a comeback message.
RossinDetroit
@geg6:
Already was. Gave his views on same sex marriage as “whatever. I don’t care who other people want to marry and I won’t stand in their way.”
Exploding crania ensued.
Spaghetti Lee
@Steeplejack:
Celebrating people getting jobs again is jingoistic bullshit?
kerFuFFler
Hey GOP, GET OFF MY LAWN!
RossinDetroit
The ad was a bit heavy handed but consider the context. Nobody expects subtlety from a Superbowl ad.
Ella in New Mexico
@Linda Featheringill:
Guilty consciences.
geg6
RossinDetroit @31:
Ah, did not know about that. Wonder if that was a John-Cole/Schiavo moment for Clint?
Steeplejack
@geg6:
I don’t see the great unwashed getting a pro-Obama message. I see them perceiving a vague “America–fuck, yeah!” vibe.
daize
@Ajay: From your keyboard to dog’s ears.
Spaghetti Lee
@Boudica:
Dude, chill. First, it’s a fucking car commercial at the Super Bowl-the fact that they made it political at all (and I’m assuming that Chrysler’s management and ad team know that an ad like that is implicitly political) is pretty gutsy. Second, the whole point is that it’s being presented as fairly non-political and bipartisan, something decent people everywhere should be happy about. If it had just been “Rah rah Democrats, suck it Mitt Romney! Obama 2012!”, the message would have fallen flat with people who don’t care about politics, and when the wingers complained about it just being political propaganda, they’d sort of have a point. Instead, the public temper tantrum they’ll end up throwing will just look like they’re mad at people getting jobs and the economy getting better, and they won’t be able to explain why without showing their hand. Advantage Obama.
I get that ‘bipartisan’ is a curse word around these parts, but when you’re trying to sell something to the political middle, it helps to be a bit more subtle.
Bago
Remember when the government used a leveraged buyout to restructure some companies while The founder of Bain capital called it socialism?
Surreal times.
JPL
The ad was patriotic and we should all be proud…imo…
JPL
ALSO,TOO What’s wrong with the Government stepping in to save a million or two jobs. I would think repubs and democrats alike would be for that.
Warren Terra
I liked the Clint/Detroit ad. I can’t tell if it’s just my own politics-tinted glasses, but I thought it was good for Obama.
Most of the other ads have sucked. Go-Daddy was crude even by its standards, some competitor of theirs was absurd trying to sell .co URLs, and Budweiser seems to have run at least a half-dozen ads, each crass and offensive in its own way. The Coke Polar Bear ads were good, and the Volkswagen ad was cute.
I am curious about the Seinfeld ad: I never really watched the show and dislike both Seinfeld and Leno, so it wasn’t aimed at me; did it work for other people?
geg6
Spaghetti Lee @39:
THIS.
Mnemosyne
For people who aren’t sure the pro-Obama message is clear enough to the Great Unwashed, I’m guessing you didn’t make the “It’s morning in America”/”It’s halftime in America” connection that I made pretty much the instant the title flashed up.
Obama is setting himself up as Reagan’s heir and frankly I fucking love it.
gbear
@Steeplejack:
You might not see it that way if you go read the comments at YouTube. More ‘fuck social!st Obama’ and ‘fuck unions’ than ‘fuck, yeah’. I bailed out pretty quickly.
Liberty60
Sorry for sounding like Tweety, but damn, that commercial sent a chill up my spine.
Clint has always appeared to be a Cole Republican- one who would hang with them when they spoke sense, but in recent years he has been pretty quiet about politics- when he was mayor of Carmel, he was notable only for being moderate instead of the gunslinger winger everyone was expecting.
Warren Terra
… Also, I think corporate political activities like this and like the Google/Wikipedia activism on SOPA/PIPA should make us stop and think. In both of the causes I named I happen to agree with the position being taken, but if I leave that aside it’s worth keeping in mind how powerful corporate voices can be, leaving aside the much more often discussed superpacs.
boss bitch
@JPL:
Ugh. Why is the government using MY tax dollars to save jobs? HMPH!
Villago Delenda Est
OK, you could have driven an M1 tank through that hole.
WyldPirate
Good grief the wingers are having a meltdown in the video comments.
I simply can’t wrap my head around why the GOoPers hate unions so much.
Linda Featheringill
@Mnemosyne: #44
Oh my. Kung fu politics. :-)
Poopyman
Aaaaand …we’re done. Giants survive Brady’s last drive.
geg6
Mnemosyne @44:
As Sully would say…MEEP MEEP!
Violet
@Mnemosyne:
Yep. It’s awesome.
Linda Featheringill
@WyldPirate: #50
Had my father lived during a later time, you probably would classify him as a “winger.” He truly hated unions and I often wondered why on earth he was so passionate about this hatred.
Then in the course of reading The Reactionary Mind, I ran across the author’s comment about agency. In this context, I would define agency as the freedom to make a choice and the ability to carry that choice out. According to the author, reactionaries fear agency in others more than anything. Unions are a way for workers to have agency. They can influence their workplaces and conditions. They can gain more control over their lives.
Now my dad was filled with fears of a lot of things and he tried to cover these fears with anger and sometimes with violence.
Like my father, I suspect that today’s wingers are afraid of workers who have free will and the power to follow that will.
Baud
Somewhat OT, but did anyone else see the awful anti-union ad, or did they just play that in some markets?
Poopyman
@Mnemosyne: @Violet: You folks really think there was an Obama/Chrysler cooperation here? I doubt it.
scav
I’d be interested in hearing why and how Obama is having a car company announce who he’s the political heir of.
Ralph Spoilsport
@Mnemosyne: DING!
scav
OT: Fireworks in Chicago on the lake, Somebody’s happy! ETA: Fairly big ones.
RossinDetroit
It’s halftime in America but It’s bedtime in Detroit.
Cheers
Bruce S
Clint is a conservative, not a mean-spirited nutcase. His heart is pretty much in the right place, even if I don’t get stuff like endorsing McCain. If the Republicans were represented by guys like Clint, the thought of them periodically gaining power wouldn’t scare me to death. Also, everything else aside, dude is going to be 82 this year and he’s still doing some of his best work. Among his most recent films was a terrific documentary on Dave Brubeck for TCM. I’ve always been a fan, going back to Rawhide when I was a kid, but Eastwood gets more remarkable and interesting with age. And aside from a pretty decent Bird-bio feature, he produced that great Monk doc. Also, IMHO got to give him credit for the finest western since The Searchers. If he gets heat from the wing-nuts, he won’t feel it…cuz he’s Clint Eastwood and they’re not.
Chuck Butcher
@Poopyman:
That ad was Buy An American Car ad and Detroit’s Back ad. The damage the Big Three did to their brands in the 80s and 90s carried over and over. By the late 90s they’d gotten mostly straightened around as far a good vehicles but they’d driven sales depression for too long and had way too much capacity for their battered image.
Not a lot of people are real unaware of why there is a Big Three today, or an auto industry in the US.
Mnemosyne
@Poopyman:
Cooperation? No. But I think that Chrysler is (rightly) grateful that Obama saved their asses, and they want him to be re-elected. And, thanks to Citizens United, they have a perfect right to run a TV ad saying so.
opie jeanne
@Boudica: I kept yelling “Say his name!”
Princess
It’s an ad for the kind of independents who think of themselves as post or non partisan. ”We all rallied around what was right and acted as one…” “There is no red America. There is no blue America. There is just one United States of America…” ClInt is pro gay marriage — maybe he’s sick of the crazy. The Chrysler people are no doubt Republican but may have no use for Mitt “Let Detroit go out of business” Romney. Chrysler as Super Pac — I hate it but I love it. “Corporations are people, my friend.”
patroclus
I think it’s post-game in America now! And the Patriots have to ask themselves – are they feeling lucky??
Soonergrunt
Fucking awesome commercial!
scav
@Mnemosyne: That could very well be. But the actor in your original statement was Obama, which is what I think both Poopyman and I were finding odd.
Hill Dweller
The wingnuts will say Obama made Chrysler do it.
As an aside, Fiat owns 59% of Chrysler.
geg6
Jeebus. It’s frightening that too many people on my own side are too wrapped up in their own personal agendas that they can’t see the forest for the trees. I expect better of BJ, but I probably shouldn’t.
Anyway, is it awful that I’m looking forward to The Voice? I watched the first season and found it far superior to American Idol. Granted, that’s not a high bar, but the talent level (both the judges and the contestants, but especially the judges), the format, and the structure of the competition are orders of magnitude higher quality. I am ashamed to admit how much I like and lust after Adam Levine. And Cee Lo is adorable with his persona and short chunky arms. I can even stomach the country dude (sorry, but I hate country so much that his name always escapes me). He’ll, I can even stomach X-tina. Most Beaver Countians hate her with a white hot hate because of how she disses us every time she gets the opportunity. Hell, she still claims to be a Wexford native when we all know she is from Rochester, PA. ;-)
Bruce S
“As an aside, Fiat owns 59% of Chrysler.”
That must be the “Fiat money” that Ron Paul keeps complaining about.
gbear
@Mnemosyne: I have to agree with your take on the ad. The word ‘halftime’ is key. Four years down, four more to go. Glad to see the ad and glad that they got Clint for the narration. Suck it, wingnuts.
Mnemosyne
@scav:
It wasn’t meant to sound that way — I do think that Chrysler came up with the commercial on their own. But I also think it’s a shot across the bow to Republicans to show that CU can be used against them.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Steeplejack:
Widespread belief in the myth of American exceptionalism ain’t going away any time soon. I’d rather it work for our interests than against them. Obama has done a wonderful job of co-opting culturally pervasive memes: the indomitable American worker, America as a model for all other countries to follow, a God that has a special place in His heart for America, etc.
CaseyL
I thought it was an excellent commercial, and I’ve loved the “Imported from Detroit” campaign from the moment it launched. To me, it conjured up a city-region that is hurting yet defiant, aware of and playing off its image as “other.”
If it sounds like, looks like, and feels like an Obama ad, so much the better. The Obama campaign, or one of its surrogates, ought to take that tape of Romney saying the American auto industry and Detroit should be left to die and play it on non-stop loop.
The game was amazing. I am so glad I wasn’t strongly on one team’s side, and could just enjoy some really good football. I don’t think there have been many Super Bowls that were decided in the last minute.
magurakurin
@Ajay: although there is a shot at 53 seconds of people by the water and the man in the center in a golf cap sort of does look like Obama in a golf cap.
More than a little bit of a stretch but…
Carolinus
@CaseyL:
Add in audio of Limbaugh telling his dittoheads not to buy Detroit autos so Obama’s policy fails.
FlipYrWhig
Re: Eastwood’s politics, didn’t he get pilloried by the culture-war right for Million Dollar Baby? I can totally see him thinking that enough was finally enough.
Also too, fuck the fucking Giants.
Violet
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, this is my take as well. I don’t think Obama and Chrysler coordinated to make the ad. I do imagine that Obama probably grinned pretty widely when he saw it on his TV in the White House.
Jay C
Well, until I started reading this BJ thread, I hadn’t really discerned any political message in Chrysler’s ad: but now…
it was pretty awesome, come to think about it; especially from Chrysler, the Sick Man of the American auto industry for since forever, and which, IIRC, just reported a profitable (quarter?) for the first time since Lee Iacocca’s tenure..
BTW, I though one of the better ads this SB was the one for the Fiat 500 Abarth with the slick Italian chick with the scorpion tattoo: the car may be hot, but she was smokin’….
Redshift
From my Twitter stream during the game (may have been from Marcy Wheeler, but it’s long scrolled off by now): “Every one of these auto ads should end with the words “Thank you, Barack Obama.”
Roger Moore
@Chuck Butcher:
Pretty much this. I think there’s also a certain amount of “thanks for giving us a hand when we needed it” vibe in there, but it’s certainly not the major theme. Now if 27% of America is unhappy because they didn’t support the bailout, wish Detroit had gone under, and now have a guilty conscience because they assume it’s going to be held against them, well, that’s their problem.
Raven
@Roger Moore:
conscience
yea right
Shawn in ShowMe
@CaseyL:
Football fans have had the good fortune of seeing three of the last five Super Bowls be decided in the last minute, two of them by Eli Manning. Lucky ducks.
Jenny
“Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”
flukebucket
It was a great commercial and the first thing I thought was yeah, it is halftime and there is no way in hell I would consider changing quarterbacks. Our quarterback is the only thing keeping us in the game.
ABL I did want to thank you for the Alinsky post on your site last week. I followed Cole’s link over to your place and downloaded Rules for Radicals. It is wonderful. It should be just as much required reading as The Art of War and The Prince.
ABL 2.0
@Redshift: that was jamelle bouie.
rob!
I swear to Allah, I really thought it was going to say “Obama 2012” at the end of that.
Best thing about it–it didn’t have to!
JordanRules
@Shawn in ShowMe: Yeah and I felt it in another ad…think it was GE? Maybe?
Anyhow, collusion or not it felt like that real campaign ’12 stuff, not the Klown Kar stuff of the GOP primary. One day we may hear a story about the ad(s) but right now it works. And he the First Lady are where they need to be. Hitting the high visibility spots – using the forced bully pulpit to not act like a bully but convey the same steadiness and continuity of message that should work with folks not wedded to this in the way many of us are.
lol chikinburd
The clip at 0:50-0:52 of the protestors (over the words “discord and blame”) was lifted from footage of the protests in Madison last year, with some signs photoshopped out. That’s totally the Hans Christian Heg statue in the foreground, and comparison shots on teh Twitters nail the rest.
Reactions I’ve seen vary from “fuck you, Detroit, for coopting the anti-austerity movement” to “fuck you, Detroit, for Broderizing the pro-union protests” to “fuck you, Detroit, for closing the GM plant in Janesville” to “well, at least we got on TV again, and for a de facto Obama commercial”.
rikyrah
Whatever ad agency that did this ad was worth every penny.
WyldPirate
@Linda Featheringill:
Brian R.
@gbear:
Why would you ever read the comments at Youtube for anything? Ever?
Linda
People, I guess it could have been an Obama ad, but I could see it just as a cheer for a big American industry making a comeback, and I don’t think it had anything to do with an endorsement/ideology one way or another, from Eastwood’s
point of view. And he sure as hell doesn’t need the money. More likely, he formed some sort of attachment to the city from filming “Gran Torino” there, and was happy to see an American industry get off the ropes.
Emerald
@magurakurin:
I saw that too.
Note that there are no accidents in these commercials. The ad makers go over them frame by frame. Especially in a Superbowl commercial. That wasn’t a mistake.
Now let’s see the O-Team pick up on this, and make an ad with Obama walking through Detroit in about the same way, with about the same mood.
It’s all set up.
Carolinus
Now let’s everyone point at Michelle and laugh:
http://twitter.com/#!/michellemalkin/status/166330416129769473
Smiling Mortician
@Linda:
Eastwood’s a pretty smart guy. I feel quite certain that he knows what he’s saying with “It’s halftime in America.” He made it about a whole lot more than just Detroit. Endorsement? Maybe not — and certainly not directly. But the ad lays out some pretty clear assertions about what’s right and what’s wrong on a political level.
Villago Delenda Est
@Carolinus:
Dang, there goes my Schadenfreude meter again.
Carolinus
More whinging:
http://twitter.com/#!/DavidLimbaugh/status/166335751120891904
RinaX
I honestly didn’t take anything political from the ad when I saw it. The only comment it got was an “Hey, isn’t Clint Eastwood dead?”. People were thinking there was some CGI trickery going on. But since wingnuts think any compliments about the auto industry recovery = socialism/marxism/obamaisblakandmuslinism, of course they took it as an attack on them. I’m just idly wondering if it will be Ed Henry or Chuck Todd who asks the first snotty question about this ad at tomorrow’s press conference.
Roger Moore
@Raven:
I actually think guilty conscience is at the center of a lot of the right’s problems. They know damn well they’re not living up to their own ideals, but instead of trying to fix that they take it out on the rest of us. It goes along with their massive projection and general defensiveness.
RinaX
Crap, I used the *S* word in an earlier post without thinking. Please get it out of moderation hell.
KXB
Clint is fairly independent. He took heat from religious groups for Million Dollar Baby. He may not have supported Obama, but he acknowledged how historic his story was, since he remembered segregated nightclubs and hotels as a young man. He is probably the only guy who ciould have made Letters from Iwo Jima, a WWII story from the Japanese POV. Anyone who tries to pigeionhole his views will have a tough time.
Spaghetti Lee
@Carolinus:
Wahahahaha! Suffer, you evil little troll, suffer!
Bruce S
Cariolanus – thanks for following the Twitter feeds of puke-worthy punks so I don’t have to. (Actually, I’ve kept off of Twitter entirely and my wife has sacred-bond instructions to shoot me if I’m found wandering the streets Twittering, underpants on my head.)
gwangung
Which is not inconsistent with how Democrats feel.
Cherish that others feel the same way we do; there lies the path for working together.
Carolinus
This one’s just disturbing:
http://twitter.com/#!/secupp/status/166330728878051328
Bruce S
S.E Cupp should have her skinny, sick ass kicked. I’d be more than happy to participate. She’s a piece of garbage.
Quaker in a Basement
The ad is an extension of Gran Torino.
Gran Torino was a fascinating–if somewhat dramatically predictable–movie. The film’s message was that America is defined by our shared values, not by a shared ancestry. It was a giant F-U to the anti-immigrant crowd and a double F-U to the entitled upper middle class.
Tom Q
Eastwood has always been an independent voter. Like most such, he was with Nixon/Reagan during their strong periods, but he was a declared Perot voter and has stayed in that mode since. I was a bit surprised he was with McCain last time out, but I believe it may have been the veteran connection (Eastwood has always been loudly supportive of all military) and some memory of McCain’s more independent period. I suspect he’s one of those guys who’d always be a Republican if they weren’t insane, but who takes many positions now that are anathema to the party and finds himself unable to stay inside the fold.
I can’t believe he didn’t realize doing this ad was at least an implicit endorsement of what Obama’s done as opposed to what Romney and others were advocating, the same way I can’t believe there are those here not grasping that undertone. This is a terrific ad for Obama’s spirit despite it never mentioning him by name.
Roger Moore
@Tom Q:
I think we should just go ahead and call these people “Obama Republicans”.
Citizen_X
Oh, come on! To get upset about this ad because it was too political, you would have to have been in a party that had spent the past three years doing its level best to make sure the American economy fai…
Oo-ooh, that’s why they’re pissed.
Linda
@gwangung: I think so, too, and I’m delighted.
@Carolinus:
She’s just in a race to see who can be the most offensive right-wing asshole. It’s like the rat race: if you win, you’re still a rat.
gwangung
Yeah, pretty much.
Though, I ponder…if the Republicans were made up of folks like Eastwood, I think Obama would tack leftwards to capture folks. Hm.
@Citizen_X: Heh. Heh heh.
FuriousPhil
I’ve been lurking here a long time – as someone who lives in southeast Michigan, and a former Chrysler employee, I’ve been generally supportive of the Imported from Detroit campaign, although I found this ad to be a bit generic – and ultimately a way to sell Dodge Rams with the patriotic pitch. Still, I’m glad so many got a positive reaction out of it.
On a more directly political note, viewers in my market got the anti-thesis to this ad from Pete Hoekstra, who ran a baffling, vaguely racist, anti-Stabenow ad. The only thing I can figure out is the whole “any publicity is good publicity” angle, since it’s being picked up by national news outlets as being racially insensitive. Whoops.
SIA
From a Hot Air commenter
Mmmmm. Delicious.
Mnemosyne
@lol chikinburd:
Actually, it was pretty smart on Chrysler’s part to use that footage, from a political point of view, because they can point to it when the tea partiers complain and say, “Hey, we’re not picking sides — see, we criticized those crazy leftists, too!” Especially since they paired it with generic TV news footage that was almost certainly meant to make you think of Fox News.
So they were able to do a political ad with plausible deniability if anyone tries to accuse them of making a campaign ad for Obama. And, of course, Citizens United says they can make as many of these kinds of ads as they want leading up to November.
Yutsano
@FuriousPhil: Got a link to the hullaballoo? I’m decidedly curious now and would love to see Hoestroika get his butt kicked come November.
Chris
Oh….man I LOVED this ad!! I’m a Clint Fan but it was perfect
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
Since I apparently “don’t have permission” to edit MY OWN DAMN COMMENT, I should say that IANAL, so when I say, “Citizens United totally allows this!” I could very well be talking out of my ass. So don’t quote me.
OzoneR
@Linda Featheringill:
Sure, but many will vote Republican anyway
FuriousPhil
@Yutsano
Link to Hoekstra’s weird xenophobic ad. There’s also an anti-Stabenow website he set up, complete with paper lanterns and dragons. Never mind that Stabenow introduced legislation to try to combat Chinese currency manipulation. Like I said, I don’t get the angle, but Hokey’s in tight with the Crazyeyes crowd (Bachmann and the TPers) so who knows.
Yutsano
@FuriousPhil: Beautimous. Racist and a liar. And his supposed explanation misses a few steps in there too.
John Weiss
My business for nineteen years was television advertising. I’ve seen better commercials, IMHO, but not many.
RalfW
@Carolinus:
Yeah.
Love this one:
Hahahaha. Wingnut freakout in progress!
Marc Jordan
America. Fuck, yeah!
RalfW
@WyldPirate:
For what it’s worth, I think for average voters – not for the assh*le pols like Kasich and Walker – there have been a lot of people, especially older blue collar people, who didn’t experience unions as helping them that much.
Agency to these guys means being able to get a job without having to join a union they suspect is corrupt. And there was a lot of corruption in unions in the 60s and 70s, at least from what I remember from being a kid around that time.
I think unions today are a lot diferent than they were in the 70s malaise era. They’re better at managing benefits, keeping a lid on corruption, organizing workers in new sectors like office cleaners, etc.
But for older voters especially, they remember the worst of unoins – which of course now they’ve been reminded of endlessly by opponents to unions. And as private sector union rolls have diminshed so much, not many younger people know a single union worker any more to text out what they hear v. people they know.
They’re just another “other” to dislike because they’ve been told over and over by the Walker/Kasich/GOP a-holes to hate them.
I think a lot of low-info Repub voters are being played, and being played hard. We ned to find ways to connect to them, not write them off or think they’re stupid.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Bruce S:
we just need to convince wrong paul that its an honest fiat currency.
Hugely
1) mmm… tasty! wingnut tears are delicious!
2) pretty sad that it would take a car commercial to get ‘murkans out of their bubble of denial…
Carolinus
Drudge linked the video. I’m guessing most of the idiots came crawling/slinking over from there.
Nancy Irving
The DNC should hire the ad agency that made this one.
Chuck Butcher
Chrysler wants to be known as a good car company – not a welfare queen.
Suezboo
Well, shoot. I wanted to see this Big Ad but YouTube says that NFL LLC owns the copyright and I can’t watch it.Is this just for us furriners or have you Murkans got the same problem?
A Proud SAfrican query.
Rhonda L. Blair
@Linda Featheringill:
Your dad may have been “violent”, and a “winger”, but believe me, most “wingers” aren’t violent. Just as most “moonbats” aren’t violent. Agency is not an option for people who want work with agencies who employ public union members. No free choice with any union. If there were, every state would be a right to work state. How did you conclude unions enable workers agency, when the prospective employee doesn’t have a choice about joining the union, paying mandated dues, and being told how to vote, or be called a rat?
Are non-union tax payers supposed to be grateful they weren’t assaulted with a baseball bat, or accosted by screaming, drum beating lemmings on their front sidewalk as they try to leave for work?
I can’t get over how much liberals worship big government and public sector unions.
FridayNext
@Suezboo:
No. I have the same problem. Maybe the NFL views the word “half-time” as their intellectual property.
FridayNext
Not only can you not see this advertisement on Youtube, I can’t even get it to load at Chrysler.com. GSD forbid I see a short movie enticing me to buy a car without me paying for it. WTF NFL?
I propose next year there be a Massengill Douche Bowl and we pit the NFL against the NCAA to see who the biggest D-Bags truly are.
FridayNext
Found it at Yahoo
http://screen.yahoo.com/chrysler-halftime-in-america-28204671.html
I can see why some people think that it is an Obama commercial. However, I think that’s because the right has ceded the patriotism of optimism narrative to the Dems. This could have been a Republican/Romney ad if that team had a message that was more about the possibilities of America rather than how evil Obama is.
FridayNext
Someone at The Baltimore Sun is on the case. (I haven’t said that since the last millennium except during season 5 of The Wire, but then I was being snarky)
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/technology/2012/02/youtube_blocks_chryslers_halft.html
NCSteve
@WyldPirate: Same reason they hate all the other stuff they hate: because they’re told to. Rank and file wingers are, by and large, authoritarian personalities who are addicted to anger and want daddy to tell them who to be angry about.
That’s the main thing that distinguishes them from the fragment on the left that’s addicted to anger. Left wing anger-addicts don’t need to be told who to be angry at. They have a long-standing communitarian social convention of being angry at the person with the most power who is closest to them ideologically.
Julie
@rikyrah: Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, OR. They are very good at what they do.
Also- a quick scan of the industry commentary around the ad seems to be 50% “Wieden and Clint rocked it” and 50% “wow, did Clint Eastwood just endorse Obama during the Superbowl?” So take that as you will. ;)