Meet Ohio Senate candidate Lee Fisher:
I’d like to see the video footage of his political adviser watching this for the first time.
*** Update ***
What band is that in the background? I bet their manager just swallowed a shotgun.
*** Update 2 ***
Apparently this is part of a documentary being filmed by his son, and I am informed in the comments am being disingenuous by not noting that. Personally, I believe the footage speaks for itself.
TenguPhule
WTH?!
robertdsc
God. Kill me now.
Comrade Stuck
That’s what I call nekked politics.
C Nelson Reilly
He’d be better off doing the numa numa song
Death By Mosquito Truck
I think it’s pretty clear which restroom this stud is using.
Rey
He does have some nice guns.
DaBomb
Uhh…
John Cole
I’m working hard to make a DADT joke, but I’m kinda overwhelmed by the possibilities.
JenJen
“It puts the lotion in the basket…”
Ohio Politics, it burns!!
@C Nelson Reilly: This guy is our Lt. Governor, you know. Numa numa hey!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to donate funds to Jennifer Brunner’s Senate campaign. Better chance of her not turning up topless on YouTube.
linda
i’m really afraid to hit ‘play’ …
Augustine
Au contraire.
Every candidate should have to appear this candidly.
Winnow the herd.
John Cole
@Augustine: Go to hell. Byrd is my Senator.
Rey
This vid is not that bad. He could either be stoned or just tired. I’d vote for stoned since he is topless and rambling about not having a clear message. The bad lighting and the music in the background reminds me of a lost West Wing episode.
Bubba
Jackson Browne. He needs to sue.
JenJen
@John Cole, top:
The song sounds like “Late For The Sky” by Jackson Browne to me. Yowch!!
@Rey:
I might have to re-think that Jennifer Brunner For Senate donation, now that you have brought this to my attention.
tripletee (formerly tBone)
@Rey:
He’s wearing a hair sweater. It is that bad.
Emma
Howly Mary Mither of Gud. What the hell is that man on???
Krista
The back hair glistening in the lamp-light is really the piece de resistance to the whole thing, isn’t it?
Little Dreamer
Well, write this campaign off as dead.
You meant senator wannabe, correct?
I got his campaign message right here: “I’m not really serious folks, I take direction from people who don’t have my best interests at heart”
ninerdave
Campaign video fail.
Ned R.
The fact that his son directed this footage is what…worries.
Laura W
@JenJen: Ah fuck me running!
I didn’t even play the video here ‘cuz I don’t care tonight, but NOW…now that I see your response…
I gave my acupuncturist my “Late For The Sky” CD so he could learn This Very Song since he occasionally likes to serenade certain patients. Which he has not. Serenaded me with it. Nor has he returned the CD, BTW.
Came on my walk today. Kills me.
I will never be able to hear it again now and feel the same way.
Sigh.
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
I watched it, but I don’t get it.
Ramalamadingdong
I don’t know how much more I can take today. Please stop.
John Cole
I think I’m inspired to turn this site into a videolog, so I can play mood music in the background while I issue taped rants while rubbing my manboobs and spare tires.
From an advertising standpoint, I’m thinking it is pure win.
Karatist Preacher
Hyman Roth in Godfather 2.
John Cole
BTW- Wonkette responded to DougJ.
You HAVE to watch the video.
Rey
@tripletee
Oh God, upon viewing a 3rd time I noticed the back hair and it’s gray- my apologies to all that took the bait and pushed play.
@jenjen
I know right, and he’s rubbing his stomach like he has the munchies. Not that I would know anything about these things.
El Cid
Is he Hugh Hefner’s half son?
mr. whipple
wtf. and they released this?
wtf??????????????????????
Death By Mosquito Truck
@John Cole:
Christ knows I’ll be smacking the tip jar button like a test monkey in a pharmaceutical lab.
JenJen
@Laura W: So sorry! Blame it on Lee. He’s hittin’ the kind and chillin’ to some Jackson Browne while perusing legislation, late-night. What’s not to love? I am but a poor messenger who ripped off a Balloon Juice post so I could put it in my Ohio-based blog.
We’re oh-so-in-touch around these parts. ;-) Oh dear, I said “parts”…
Tsulagi
I would have been far less grossed out watching your fat cat bending over (or trying) licking his asshole for ten minutes.
MikeJ
You must walk really funny.
So there were two girls out riding their bikes around through Amsterdam. One says, “Oh, I’ve never come this way before.” The other replies, “What, you’ve never ridden on cobblestones?”
mr. whipple
I can’t wait to see the Mike DeWine counterpoint.
demkat620
@John Cole: I think that Wonkette video was directed by Mike Gravel.
Bender
John Cole plays “Guess The Party” on his own blog now?
To those of you from yesterday’s thread who can’t grasp that many people find the Democrats just as ridiculous as you guys find the GOP… well, you didn’t have to wait long for an object lesson, did you?
gnomedad
Somehow, I am laughing hysterically and I don’t even understand what I’m seeing. BOB has his surreality work cut out for him.
Comrade Stuck
You will need to deploy strategically placed fainting couches.
But not the “Obama is a Failure Ones”. Those are reserved.
mr. whipple
God, that is so hot.
Laura W
@JenJen: I know. But it’s just my Very Favorite Jackson Browne Song Of All Time.
I feel soiled and betrayed. I’m gonna go bathe thrice, scrubbing my skin raw, and then swaddle myself in black.
Or get another glass of wine. Your choice.
JenJen
@John Cole: It’s not like you’d have to create material, either. Just set up a Flip HD in the bathroom during Saturday Chez Cole CleaningFest, and you’re golden.
Might want to crank the old-school rack stereo in the background, obvs.
@Laura W: I guess I’m failing to see the “BAD BAD BAD” in this. I think it’s priceless. Ol’ Lee Fisher gets baked, takes off his shirt, kicks it to some Jackson and studies policy. What? Am I missing something? ;-)
Since it’s my choice? More wine, baby!
Laura W
@mr. whipple:
Sexy! Mojitos! Manboobs!
Captain Haddock
Hey, at least there wasn’t a bottle of Jergins lotion on his desk…
Comrade Stuck
@Laura W:
We have reached Peak Nausea
Jon H
At least there’s not a gimp mask or dildo or vat of lube sitting forgotten on the desk behind him.
Augustine
@John Cole:
Redundant.
I am clearly already in hell.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089504/
mr. whipple
…but you just *know* that stuff is under the desk.
Laura W
@Comrade Stuck:
I think “Mojitos” is sexier than “Rum”, don’t you?
Especially pressed up against “Manboobs”.
Tit-illating alliteration.
You know better than to blockquote me till my 5 min. edit window expires. I am never done with my posts till I run out of time.
Wile E. Quixote
@Laura W
I’m sorry that he fucked up one of your favorite songs, but it could be worse, he could have had “I Touch Myself” by the Divinyls playing in the background.
But enough about Jackson Browne, how’s that steamy BJ discount?
Betsy
@John Cole:
Oh, I’d forgotten about that gem! That just made my day.
Wile E. Quixote
@John Cole
Even if you did it still wouldn’t be as disturbing as that Pamela Anderson ad in the sidebar. I don’t know how many times I’ve caught that out of the corner of my eye and thought “what is that large, fleshy protuberance poking out of her hoo-hoo area”
anonevent
@John Cole: That video was hillarious. I want what that guy was on.
JL
@Krista: You’re right. I never thought that I would comment on the hair on a guys back but how can one not.
Comrade Stuck
@Laura W:
You edit any time you like
But it can never leave
Wile E. Quixote
@Jon H
The gimp mask is being worn by the guy filming the video, they’re out of lube, and as for the dildo, well you don’t want to know where the dildo is, trust me, you really don’t.
mr. whipple
Speaking of sidebar ads, I dunno why, but I have a sudden urge to buy a FURminator.
Laura W
@Wile E. Quixote:
Still valid in all states but Nevada.
ninerdave
@John Cole:
There’s no way that’s for real. Hysterical.
Louise
Between Mr. Naked and the PUMA vid, I am now officially +4 without having had a single drink.
@Augustine: You are no longer allowed to use the words “nest” or “egg.”
Wile E. Quixote
@mr. whipple
Now that would be a damned sexy political ad, a shirtless Lee Fisher being groomed with a Furminator by an equally shirtless Dick Cheney. Maybe a shirtless Larry Craig could join them later on. Oh yeah. That’s hot!
Lesley
Do my eyes deceive me or did he quickly zip up his fly – or check it was zipped?
Josh Hueco
I love this country.
Wile E. Quixote
Fuckin Nevada! Oh well it doesn’t surprise me, they did elect Harry Reid after all.
Laura W
@Josh Hueco: And where the hell have YOU BEEN, Mister Mister?
Betsy
@Wile E. Quixote:
Oh dear Christ. That is certainly a sentence that has never before been uttered or written in the history of the world. And we were all better for it.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@John Cole: Great. That combined with the Pam Anderson pic will cause everyone, regardless of gender or orientation, to wrap their lips around the barrel of a .45.
Josh Hueco
@Laura W:
Busy!!! Working for the VA and getting restarted on thesis. I’ve also been interviewing a local blues musician on behalf of Baylor University. :) How about you?
PS – Clicked on your ad and visited your website the other day. Really love your stuff.
mr. whipple
“Michael, my moobs are bigger than U.S. Steel!”
Laura W
@Josh Hueco: Thanks, that’s sweet of you to say.
Are you happy with your VA work?
tammanycall
Who’s the Mac candidate?
The Grand Panjandrum
Jesus! I’m +7 and now I need a fucking drink just to recover from that trauma. Thanks for harshing my buzz bro. Jesus! Let me see if I can find a pair of channel locks so I can rip my eyeballs out.
Rick Taylor
@John Cole:
This deserves its own post. Is that video for real? I can no longer distinguish spoof from the real thing.
Tonal Crow
Reading the title, I was sure that this was a Lily or Tunch post. My bad.
khead
I thought Ernest was dead, Vern. KnowhutImean?
Josh Hueco
@Laura W:
I do whenever I can grant benefits and I don’t when I can’t. :)
The PTSD cases are the most frustrating, because often the case file presents a profile of a vet who is truly suffering, but short of the vet having a combat medal it’s extremely difficult to meet the necessary standard of proof to concede a stressor.
JL
@Rick Taylor: My thoughts are the same as yours. I could only watch half of the video but certainly got the gist of it.
Laura W
@Josh Hueco:
I’m sorry I asked.
That must break your heart. Christ.
Krista
Well, I have to give him credit for keeping a very tidy desk, anyway. It’s too bad that fastidiousness couldn’t have extended to a little bit of manscaping.
tim
I don’t get what the big deal is.
I think this humanizes the guy, if anything.
and I don’t think he’s messed up on anything either.
You people need hobbies.
Anne Laurie
Cuddle Tunch and/or Lily while you’re ranting, and you’ll bring in a whole new demographic. I hear those people have… money. Not much taste, but the advertisers will love it!
Roza
Ok then
I’ve been to Ohio and I completely understand.
Wile E. Quixote
@Betsy
Yeah, and then after they groomed each other they could pierce each other’s nipples (being careful to work around the scars on Dick’s chest from the various heart surgeries and pacemaker installations) and then Dick and Lee could bend Larry Craig over, shave a patch of hair off of his back just above his ass-crack and do lines off of it.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@Wile E. Quixote:
.. while David Carradine slowly strangles to death in the closet.
Wile E. Quixote
@Anne Laurie
That would be so awesome! Especially if John sat there with Tunch in his lap and stroked him like a shirtless Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Wile E. Quixote
Hey now, Lee, Dick and Larry aren’t into anything kinky.
p.a.
Think big: the above while selling AMWAY.
Browne’s 1st 3 albums are among my all-time faves. May have to take Late for the Sky out of circulation for a while.
cmorenc
@Tim
We have hobbies, one of which is Balloon Juice.
What we’re concerned about is: what-the-hell this video says about Lee Fisher’s hobbies? Whatever it is, it’s both hilarious and extremely disturbing.
If instead, it was a female candidate for Senate appearing topless in a video, it would, if anything, humanize her. However, just as the part of her “message” that would stick with everyone would be her naked boobs (and whether there’s a bottle of lotion somewhere nearby)…the only part of Lee Fisher’s “message” that sticks to us from this video is his man-boobs and hairy back (and, where’s the lotion bottle). What kind of politics or political statement is that?
To be fair, it’s hard to say Lee Fisher is comparatively all that messed up from this video, when he has such serious pro competition from the likes of David “I like to wear diapers with prostitutes” Vitter.
Bullsmith
Whatever is salacious in this video is in the first few seconds. The way the guy adjusts his underpants….I don’t think I’m going to explore this further.
gnomedad
OT: Bozeman MT job applicants must hand over social network logins and passwords.
Fulcanelli
@Captain Haddock:
And a baggie.
John
I don’t totally understand what this video is … why is he being filmed at all?
beabea
Maybe I am hallucinating because I have been at my computer all day without a break, but when I first read John’s post, I could have sworn that I saw “Meet Ohio Republican Senate candidate Lee Fisher”.
I was so sure of it, that when I read the linked Politico piece, I thought “What’s Ted Strickland doing with a Republican running mate??”
Even though I am slow sometimes, it took me way longer than it should have, to compute that this guy is actually NOT a Republican.
It seems that “Cheezy internet campaign Fail NOT Republican” was just too much of a mental leap for me today.
Steeplejack
Yes, this thread reminds me of what it’s all about.
When I leave the part-time gig of an evening, sometimes a coworker will say, with only a hint of condescension, “Going home, Steep? Gonna have a drink and watch a little TV? Maybe a baseball game?”
And I reply: “No, I’m going where pure evil dwells. I’m going to Balloon Juice.” That shuts them up.
What a great country we live in when running for the U.S. Senate half-naked and possibly half-baked seems like a good idea.
P.S. Has anyone checked to make sure this isn’t actually a deleted scene from the Ben Gazzara section of The Big Lebowski? I think that’s worth a look.
kay
@cmorenc:
I think it’s completely hysterical, and I know a lot about Lee Fisher.
I know his whole history as a “serious politician”. I have context. It doesn’t matter.
It’s very, very funny for some reason. Why oh why did he think this was a good idea?
John Cole
@Bender: I honestly had no idea what party he was in until you said something. I was still in shock with this shirtless aspect. And that there are strange people in his house filming him.
freelancer
DONE.
Mike P
@John Cole:
You can be the cranky white guy version of Jay Smooth.
demimondian
OK, so let me throw in a fact or so for balance.
This is from a documentary about a campaign — the guy sitting around with no shirt is in his own office at home, on a late summer night in Ohio. (Read — it’s hot and sticky, and sitting around with no shirt on is much more sensible than wearing pajamas.) His son, who’s filming the documentary, walks in on him.
His reaction? Is exactly reasonable — I don’t like being filmed, I think that this campaign isn’t winning, and I can’t sleep until I get this memo (read email) out to the rest of the campaign’s core staff.
Why is that so bad?
Little Dreamer
@John Cole:
No naked mopping, please?
Skullduggery
This is a clip from a documentary Lee Fisher’s son made called Swing State. It followed Fisher’s running for Lt Governor in 2006. This part of the film is awkward to watch but it makes sense in the context of the film.
Edit: demimondian has the context right.
John Cole:
It’s his son, Zone Fisher.
Lesley
@tim:
Tim, you’re right and for the most part I think people are having a laugh. Whatever he’s doing, as long as it’s legal and harmless and on his own time (not his office) is his business.
Let’s face it, we all have private moments and none of us want to be filmed in any of those moments, and most of us don’t want to know or think about each other’s private moments even if they are no big deal.
What makes no sense to me at all is the guy with the camera? What’s he doing there and why is he filming? I can’t imagine he could be there if he didn’t have permission.
update: Now that I’ve read skullduggery’s comment it all makes sense.
beabea
@demimondian,
@Skullduggery
I hate to say this, but John may have just qualified himself for Fox News employment by demonstrating the art of manufacturing Fail by taking a video clip out of context and then letting his
viewerscult-like following go to town on it.mr. whipple
That’s the point. All of this is understandable, except wanting to see it in a final cut. That’s inexplicable.
And kinda gross.
beabea
@beabea +1
I would hasten to add, John would then be immediately disqualified from Fox News employment as a result of yesterday’s “STFU about Reagan” post.
frigg
dat d00d haz hair on its back and none on it’s head. weird!
Comrade Stuck
@Skullduggery:
Must be a Frank Zappa fan.
Batocchio
WTF?
GlenInBrooklyn
I’ve said many times (since 1971) I didn’t leave Ohio. I escaped. Now you know why.
To be sure, NY has its share of loons, but at least Elliot Spitzer had the courtesy of sparing us a topless video.
Comrade Darkness
@John Cole: That’s a spoof, right?
Please?
JGabriel
Krista:
Imagine his ball hair, like nubbins of ragged twine.
.
JGabriel
(I’m going to hell for that joke, I just know it.)
.
bago
@kommrade reproductive vigor: A colt .45 baby! YEAH!
monkeyboy
I expected him to turn to the camera and offer the viewer some Courvoisier and an opportunity to get comfortable.
Napoleon
Yikes!
I run into Lee Fisher every once and a while (last time he was looking for ties at a Brooks Brothers) and I am going to be so tempted to walk up to him and ask WTF he was thinking.
kay
@demimondian:
It’s not that it’s “so bad”, what he’s doing in the film, it’s that it’s funny.
It is just really funny, and while I’m sure that wasn’t his son’s intent when filming it, it still made me laugh.
I bet Jennifer Brunner loves this clip. She’s Fisher’s opponent in the primary, and she’s the underdog.
kay
@tim:
And you have to ask if Lee Fisher needed “humanizing”. He’s been around forever. I think I’ve seen him yearly running for something or other my entire adult life. We’re nothing if not familiar with this person. I remember his 80’s hairdo. I don’t want to, but I do.
I’m not sure he needed further exposure.
HL Guy
What’s remarkable is this is only the *2nd best* use of “Late for the Sky” as background music for a guy losing his mind, up later than anybody should be:
The parallels are creepy!
dino goposaur
Goodbye horses? More like goodbye breakfast.
BC
this guy is completely insane. batshit.
Froley
HL Guy, that’s the first thing I thought of when I heard the song in the background (I’ve seen “Taxi Driver” way too many times). I think that the similarities (the song, being shirtless, staring at a screen, feelings of no one understanding him) have to be deliberate. Maybe his campaign slogan should be “A Rain to Wash the Scum Off the Streets.”
JR
Can I just point out the obvious for a moment? This is a candidate up past 1 a.m. working on his campaign message, probably “dressed” for bed because it’s really damn late. I think we can all agree it’s not a good image for the campaign to have him sleepy and shirtless on the web, but for the love of God do you know what most of us look like at 1 a.m.?
I do, because I’ve secretly tapped into all of your built-in webcams and I watch you late at night. And with the exception of DougJ, none of you should be casting stones.
MNPundit
I think the real question is, how the hell was his placed on to the internet? HIS SON filmed the damn thing.
Fuck. Traitors.
Ryan
I’d hate to see what any one of us might look like when filmed at 1am in the comfort of our own homes. Let he who is without back hair cast the first stone.
Marty
This clip was pirated from an ’06 documentary made by Fisher’s son, Jason.
I would feel better about it if the kid just played a prank on his old man, but the father and son both clearly thought this portrayed the pops in a favorable light. The whole family is a bunch of self-absorbed weirdos.
I wonder what kind of conversations father and son will have this father’s day.