Rick Perry not afraid to admit he is a Christian

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 13 Comments

"Whole country's so bolloxed up I can't even enjoy this uncritically."

The Iowa caucuses are less than a month away, which means it’s time for candidates for the Republican nomination to demonstrate whatever bona fides might appeal to a rural, right-leaning state that also loves education and farm subsidies. It’s kind of tricky, to tell you the truth, but Iowa conforms to the template of contemporary conservatism in at least one way: church people. The state is bursting at the Crocs with evangelical Christians. That’s good news for Rick Perry, whose professed religion is the one part of his campaign he has not yet screwed up. If Newt Gingrich somehow makes himself unlikable between now and then, a victory in Iowa might breathe new life into Perry’s bid. If only he could find some completely safe issue that appeals to religious voters but doesn’t require him to remember anything about policy or events. If only. Video after the jump.

Continue reading

Rick Perry releases Armageddon 2: Antichrist

By Dan Brooks in Campaign Advertisements 6 Comments

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.

Continue reading

Close readings: Sarah Palin’s discandidacy announcement

By Dan Brooks in Close Reading, Uncategorized 5 Comments

"Did you just say pork burrito? It sounded like you said pork burrito."

I follow three people on Twitter: Ben Fowlkes, Iowa legislator/general nutjob Kim Lehman, and Sarah Palin. Yesterday, SarahPalinUSA directed me to Facebook for a “statement on 2012 decision.” The statement is that she isn’t running. She cites the same reasons that have been drifting through her various word-clouds for the last month: that she wants to help other conservatives get elected, that she doesn’t need a title to “restore” America, that no one who owns a TV or has heard of America would even briefly consider putting her in charge of it. That last one is implied, I guess, but the upshot is that even Sarah Palin knows Sarah Palin can’t be President. Most of her announcement is what you’d expect, except for the first paragraph. That’s actually a work of considerable nuance, or at least insinuation, and it’s the subject of today’s Close Reading. Primary source after the jump.

Continue reading

Palin says national bus tour not about publicity

By Dan Brooks in Just Sayin' Stuff 4 Comments

"I wish I could stop thinking about me, too! (Cat sound)"

Good news, you guys: the One Nation Bus Tour—a multi-state junket that began in Washington, DC and will conclude in the quadrennially-significant state of New Hampshire at some unknown point in the future—is not about Sarah Palin or publicity, despite Sarah Palin having publicly announced it to reporters before her bus disappeared. If the lamestream media wants to act like the former vice presidential candidate’s trip up the east coast in a bus with eagles and primary source documents painted on the side of it is a campaign tour, that’ll just be the sort of bullshit they pull. As she explained to Greta Van Susteren:

I know that many of the mainstream media are looking for kind of a conventional campaign-type tour. And I’ve said from the beginning this isn’t a campaign tour, except to campaign on our Constitution.

Okay so, um, is a campaign tour, then? When you say you’re campaigning on something, you are still campaigning—even if, as Palin elaborated, all you want to do is “highlight the great things about America.” That’s like Dick Clark saying that really it’s about New Year’s Eve. Even more belying promotional video after the jump.

Continue reading

Seeking children, McDonald’s re-deploys clown

By Dan Brooks in advertising 8 Comments

"It's actually parked out back, if you want to get out of here."

You may not have noticed,* but the last few years of McDonald’s commercials have been conspicuously free of Ronald McDonald, the clown so brightly colored that only a child‘s retinas are innocent enough to look at him. It turns out that L. Ron McDonald has been the object of an ongoing campaign of protest from various height/weight-appropriate killjoys, who argue that he is designed to sell unhealthy food directly to children. That is obviously true. When was the last time you saw a clown convince an adult of anything, much less what to put in his mouth? Whereas that works on kids all the time. With their McCafe marketing campaign and their new emphasis on salads, apple slices and other substances that will not immediately stop a mouse’s heart, McDonald’s has been working the adult/child divide for the last several years, so it’s only logical that they would again release Ronald McDonald into the wild. He is back; he is still simultaneously nonthreatening and extremely disturbing, and he is definitely for kids.

Continue reading