Kaboom! Mitt Rombama has a psychic episode.
A few weeks ago we discussed the terrifyingly cinematic campaign commercial in which Rick Perry teaches a broken America to make jet fighters again. That was back when he was the front runner and logically impelled to demonize the President. Now that the American people have gotten to know him, Perry is trailing fellow suit-mounted jawline Mitt Romney. (Ed.: Who? Who?) The two men couldn’t be more different: one is the millionaire son of a former governor, and the other became a millionaire while he was governor. Also, one of them is basically Barack Obama. In order to make clear which, Perry has produced this 59-second biopic. Props to Micky for the link, and video after the jump.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfcOGWRfXdk
Romney’s big weakness as a candidate is that A) sometimes during a lightning strike you can see his true form and B) he implemented health care reform in Massachusetts. Health care reform, as 50% of surviving Hank Williamses will tell you, is extremely bad. It’s what President Obama did. Not only that, but Romney’s health care reform was the inspiration for Obama’s plan, which is why they’re called Romneycare and Obamacare, respectively. See :01 through :08 if you’re confused. What’s worse, now that Obamacare has been implemented will have been implemented and destroyed America, Romney is against it. That son of a bitch agrees with Rick Perry.
Here we find some stickum on the wicket of Romney’s health care record, through which Perry hopes to drive the striped red ball of true conservatism. Now that Romney fixed and/or destroyed health care in the state of Massachusetts, he feels bad about it. Past Mitt Romeny is on Meet the Press telling a man now dead that he would mandate the hell out of everyone, but present Mitt Romney is against it. Unfortunately, this position coincides with Perry’s and that of every other Republican candidate, which accounts for the shift at around :30 of this advertisement. Really, we’re looking at two campaign videos. The first is about how Mitt Romney agrees with President Obama, and the second is about how, now that he disagrees, he’s a flip-flopper.
“Even the richest man can’t buy back his past,” the titles tell us from :42 to :46. It’s possible Romney is not the richest man in America or even among the current GOP candidates, but that’s not the point. The point is that in 2006 he made universal health care the law in Massachusetts, and also he’s rich, and now he’s strutting around saying he believes the same things as Rick Perry. Obviously, one of these square-jawed brunette millionaire governors against health care reform is a fake. All you have to do is look at their records. What Mitt Romney said five years ago tells you what he believes now.
Ah, 2006. The country was more innocent then, and Republican governors had much more ambitious plans for everybody. That was the year that Rick Perry—just to pick an example—proclaimed the inerrancy of the Bible and his personal belief that all those who did not accept Jesus Christ would be condemned to hell. He was agreeing with John Hagee at the time. Perry has qualified his opinion since then, noting in 2008 that he didn’t think government “should espouse a specific faith,” before going on to declare a statewide Day of Prayer and Fasting in 2011. If you ask contemporary Rick Perry whether Eric Cantor is going to hell, he’ll probably say no. The only way to know if he’s telling the truth is to wait for a bolt of lightning.
Theory: Rick Perry is not concerned with the 50 million Americans who don’t have health insurance because he believes that 75 million of us are going to hell anyway. More robust theory: Rick Perry gives not a rat’s ass about health insurance or the Kingdom of the Dark Lord, because he needs all his rats’ asses for Mitt Romney. In a world where the best anyone can say about any particular Republican is that he’s not Barack Obama (distant explosion,) Southern Mitt Romney needs to do something about Mormon Rick Perry. Only one man can be Not Barack Obama in 2012. I can’t wait until the Perry committee has to make one of these commercials about Herman Cain.
That’s what I’ve been wanting from your blog: a last sentence that makes me smile excitedly expectantly instead of ruefully knowingly.
suit-mounted jaw line. yes.
this one has so many winners. thank you.
Me, and most of the people I know are insulted when big letters flash “Obamacare” and “Romneycare” on a screen in front of us. We know those are just labels and that labels are weapons used by people who would do our thinking for us.
And right after being insulted we usually become contemplative about whether there really are people out there who don’t have defenses against this stuff. They don’t see labels, they see “yeah I agreeals,” or something. That’s a problem because democracy relies on voters to be competent, and absorbing opinions paid for by campaigns is incompetent.*
So what do we do about it? Make The War Room and Our Brand Is Crisis, required viewing in high schools? Before every election cycle? Those are too long. Perhaps this scene from the Adjustment Bureau would be more palatable.
What’s being done? Mostly I see people moaning on blogs, or in my case, in blog comments. I feel like at least 60% of my k-12 curriculum was aimed to create a critical thinker. I think it was mostly successsful. While critical thinkers are probably more susceptible to absorbing political opinions than they realize, at least it takes a little more work and a few more subtle tricks than a Perry campaign ad to get’em. What do we do to minimize the impact of Perry campaign ads if the compulsory education system isn’t completely successful? Can an adult even develop critical-thinking skills?
I think the way is to make it less fashionable to belong to political parties and thereby absorb that group’s prefabricated political thought. If you don’t see yourself as a liberal, Democrat, conservative, or Republican you have to be skeptical anytime someone belonging to one of those groups speaks. And that’s a good thing, I think.
*Correct comma usage?
I don’t know who I despise more: Michael Bay, or the people who try to imitate Bay’s style.
That’s a smart answer to a difcufilt question.