If the Santorum campaign hoped to put together a video that would get people talking, its latest effort worked like a charm. This minute-long clip is so wildly, albeit inadvertently, entertaining, I've watched it at least 10 times.
The point of the video is, well, to scare the bejesus out of voters. If President Obama is president in 2014, Team Santorum's new clip argues, small towns will look like scenes from "The Walking Dead"; playground equipment will move mysteriously on its own; shoes will be abandoned; infants will be left alone in cribs; consumers will try pumping gas into their ears; religious liberty will be eliminated; and Iran will prepare to strike the United States with nuclear weapons.
As Paul Waldman put it, "Apparently, it will take Obama only two years to turn America into some combination of 'The Day After' and 'Saw.'"
My personal favorite moment comes about 40 seconds in, when we see a screen blink quickly, transposing images of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and President Obama, as if the two were effectively the same person. As Brad Johnson noted, when the Santorum narrator says "sworn American enemy," viewers see Obama's image.
I don't generally laugh out loud at these sorts of things, but Santorum's video is the most unintentionally hilarious video from a presidential candidate I've seen from someone whose name does not rhyme with Sherman Bain.
Waldman added, "[D]o the people on the Santorum campaign actually believe this will be persuasive to anyone? Or are they so blinded by their own hatred of Obama that they can't see how silly this is?"
Those need not be rhetorical questions.
I rather doubt Team Santorum intends to persuade anyone with this nonsense. It's more likely the candidate and his aides are making a desperate cry for attention. In a there's-no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity sort of way, I suppose the video is working -- here I am writing about it -- but as a rule, Santorum would probably prefer that folks laugh with him, not at him.
It also seems plausible to me that Santorum hopes Democrats will complain about this video, giving the former senator a chance to say, "See? I'm the one the left hates the most." So far, however, I haven't heard from any Democratic official or campaign committee who found this worth their time.
Stepping back, however, what's perhaps most striking about this video is what it doesn't say: there's no criticism of Obama's first three years in office. It's almost as if Santorum is arguing, "Sure, Obama led Americans through trying times and got the country on stronger footing, but a dystopian nightmare is right around the corner, so please be terrified."
I have a hunch this isn't going to work.
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Within each of us lies a latent Hitchcock. . .
Or Tina Fey. I thought this was a parody.
I CANNOT wait for SNL to parody this this coming weekend. They'll blow the lid off of this.
What I think every commentary has missed is what this "trailer" is a stylistic riff on and it is not The Walking Dead (except as that is an homage to George Romero) It is a riff on the 1980's syndicated series Tales of the Darkside (an acknowledged homage to Romero) which opened with similar photographic effects and the voiceover:
And closed with:
In this sense the thing works pretty well. The message is garbage, but as a riff it works pretty well.
Elizabeth... can you imagine the Santorum dystopia..condom and birth control police ....Porn police ...religious indoctrination...
Only think nice thoughts about Obama or he'll wish you into the corn field.
Couldn't help myself.
Obamaville: The Walking Dead
No wonder this is on the internet, and not on the airwaves. I think the FCC has rules against subliminal messaging, which the flash image of Obama in between longer images of Ahmadinejad would qualify as being...
If it were truly a subliminal image, it would not be that obvious to the naked eye. Please let me explain when I tell you to chill out and laugh. This was not meant to be a subliminal image. This was meant to be an image that was up juuuuust long enough that people would go "huh? Wazzat?" and go through the ad frame by frame until they saw it, and then get outraged, and then news programs/networks would talk about it and play it - for free - over and over again: "Was this a subliminal message? Was it over the line? Let's watch it again." The REAL subliminal message is that, if the ad works as it was REALLY intended, all these news networks would be talking about Rick Santorum, and people who have yet to vote in primaries would assume Santorum must have momentum, because he's being talked about so much on the news, and oh, look how angry those Democrats and the media are with him, he must be doing something right!
Don't be mad because the Santorum campaign thought Americans were dumb enough to fall for their ad's overt message, be mad because they thought Americans would be dumb enough to fall for their covert message. And I'm sure, to some degree, they're right, some Republicans probably will be swayed by their "if they're pissing off the liberals they must be doing something right" game plan. The question is HOW many?
Freeze-frame the numbers on the gas pump, 37.8 gallons of gas for $90.79, that works out to $2.40 a gallon. WOOOOO...that Obamaville is one scary place....could you show its location on Google maps Rick, I need to fill up.
I am beginning to wonder about the sanity of Santorum. His CRAZY side is starting to leak out!!
BEGINNING??? BEGINNING to wonder about his sanity??? Spell-check always changes his name to "Sanitorium..."
@Gesrtenplatz:
That's funny, back home in rural NC a couple of weeks ago, my mother (bless her heart), whose in her 60s, kept calling him "Sanitorium"... She doesn't have an ironic bone in her body, so I know she wasn't trying to be funny (she hates the guy). She was more likely than not just mispronouncing his name. I thought it was kind of funny in an innocent way, so I didn't bother correcting her...
You mean Sick Rant-orum?
Rachel has talked about the low-rent, disorganized campaign Mr. Santorum has been running. This video simply looks as if it were the losing entry in a high school multi-media course contest Santorum sponsored. Talk about amateur night in Dixie!
I think y'all hit that nail right on it's ever-lovin' head, Mr. Charley! Amateur night in Dixie...it doesn't, after all, take much of a dogwhistle to start 'em howlin' 'round here.
And (dropping the Belle persona and turning serious) make no mistake; Santorum is going after Gingrich's niche of bigoted voters. "TeaParty" in the South means white folks and don't forget it. I have been calling these people out for racism since 2008...I know what I'm talking about.
Ma'am, I would take off my hat to you if I were wearing one! Your first paragraph, short as it was, made me laugh so much that I PMSL. Just a lil bit. We older ladies have that trouble sometimes, you know. *trots off to the loo still giggling*
Yes, Miss Brianna, I do understand...have that trouble sometimes myself! ;D
It's all about the VOICE, I think it was the same guy I heard on an ad for the tractor-pull and big-wheel mud-pit extravaganza down at the fair grounds in Filer, Idaho. Where do they FIND guys who actually talk like this?
Maybe they found him back in the 19th century where they seem to believe they live now.
sounds to me like he's trying to do Rod Serling of the Twilight Zone.
There's the sign post up ahead: Next stop, the fact-free zone.
I was laughing when I read this, let's just keep laughing. The Obama Campaign should do a parody video. I'm just afraid people would actually beleive it. Talk about Doom and Gloom. Fear and anger, fear and anger is all they got.
I know, I'm a party popper, but I don't find this funny at all. I find it disgusting and idiotic and I'm scared that enough losers with no brains are going to see this and get even more scared. So many of us look to visual media for our news and facts now, that this could really set a lot of crazy people off.
At first, I did laugh, because it was so stupid. But then I got to the part about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and OBama's faces sort of intertwined, and I knew what crazy people would think of it.
This is not just political rivalry, this is outright hatred.
I could not agree with you more. Let us not forget the tragic shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. One has to think about how their message will be perceived by the fringe and mentally ill. I wonder if the psycho Sanitorium Campaign wants to work people up on purpose! The mainstream will chuckle; the fringe will clean their guns...
Agreed - I find it more disturbing than amusing. I have family members who take this kind of garbage very seriously. They listen to Glenn Beck ranting about how we're almost at "phase 3" of the Hitler-like progressive plot to destroy America, when opponents of Obama and his evil masters will be "liquidated" ... and they believe it, and they stock up on weapons and freeze-dried food ... and all the while they are doing just fine. But I can see the kinds of images shown in the Santorum video being very persuasive of the idea that outside one's secure home, the world is falling apart. These idiots need to lighten up on the apocalyptic rhetoric, seriously.
I too thought this was a parody on political advertisement from a nighttime comedy show. But it's Rick Santorum who's teh parody on a political candidate.
I think creating scary films to illustrate their inner fears is a fundie meme. Back in the early 1970's, a southern baptist who got frustrated with me laughing every time he tried to scare me with thoughts of a rapture, invited me to see a film at his church. The film depicted every scary detail of his worst nightmare. And he seriously expected me to finally get it after seeing that film. Delusional doesn't begin to capture the paranoia.
the really sad part, is that there are plenty of people who won't be laughing...but buying!
SNL would be lucky to have these writers!!!
Santorum's true nature is starting to surface from the pressure...like the person you've been dating for a few months who seemed so nice and then turned all Glenn Close on you. His melt down with the press the other day was his "Dean Scream"...if the delegate math didn't make it clear enough that he was done, his ongoing public unraveling certainly does. He's nuttier than a PayDay.
It's not a Dean Scream until the media plays it a few hundred times and tells you it's just nuts.
this video is so paranoid and the Santorum camp's hated of their competition so obsessive that the Richard Nixon camp and Watergate come to mind. Man, those that don't study history get to repeat it.
Rod Serling voice, "Submitted for your approval, a cautionary tale, provided by a 'would-be' politician who has proven to be a political hack. Next stop- the Twilight Zone".
Will Sanatorium stoop to nothing???
Santorum... Enough said!
i haven't heard a voice like that since last summer's ad for the Tractor-pull and Big-Wheel mud-pit extravaganza at the fairgrounds in Filer Idaho... Where do they FIND guys who talk like that? At Tractor pulls?
You can find these people everyday at the Greyhound bus station. Some of them walk around pretending that they are talking into a microphone.
The people targeted by this ad will believe it. These are the people whose mispelled protest signs say ," Keap yer Big Guvermint hands off my Medicare!"
At first when I read Benen's commentary I thought he must be exaggerating. Then I watched video, and I wondered if this was actually a parody--it couldn't be for real, could it? But apparently it is.
The sad thing is that the fact that Santorum has gone completely bonkers will be taken by much of the media to imply that Romney must be reasonable and moderate, simply because he's not Santorum. But that doesn't follow, and Romney's policy positions are pretty much in line with Santorum and everyone else in the GOP field.
Santorum's third meaning...:Nuttier then squirrel poo.
This is like the conservatives out there who have been talking about how "The Hunger Games" is about fighting against "big government." Anyone who has really read the books can say HG is about the haves manipulating the have nots, where the haves even pull the strings of the have-nots' heroes...until the have-nots fight back. (Sound familiar?) And anyone who knows anything about great dystopian literature knows...it isn't produced by those on the right.
BTW, why didn't anyone tell Farmer Guy With the Shovel (or whatever it is)..."Don't smile"??
At first when I read Benen's commentary I thought he must be exaggerating. Then I watched video, and thought maybe he had made a different mistake--this was a parody. But apparently it's for real.
The sad thing is that the fact that Santorum has gone completely bonkers will be taken by much of the media as implying that Romney is therefore reasonable and moderate, since he's not Santorum. This of course does not follow, and on policy positions Romney is pretty much in line with the rest of the GOP field.
Santourm and the 'Deathly Hallows' I am surprised Jesus didn't appear. Oh that's right, He lives in South Park.
Sick Bastards...
It looked like a trailer for a bad action movie. One based on a graphic novel that nobody read because it sucked.
It's good to see the original ad though. It'll help me better appreciate the spoofs.