The Teletubbification Of Britain

David Weigel | April 19, 2006

Sure, it may seem like the politics of the US and Britain stand shoulder to shoulder. But ask yourself - can you imagine the Republicans or Democrats running a five-minute commercial that turns the other party's leader into an adorable cartoon lizard? (Britain's highly regulated campaign finance regime, which gives each party a block of free TV time instead of forcing them to pay for commercials, may have something to do with this.)

Comments

|4.19.06 @ 8:46AM|#

I think it's quite a good advert!

I don't think it's as nasty or cynical as the adverts about Kerry's war record.

|4.19.06 @ 8:58AM|#

I think Kerry could have won had he run a five minute commercial depicting Bush as a...bush.

|4.19.06 @ 9:04AM|#

I think that the conservatives should run an advert with Gordon 'I'm am miserable scotsman' Brown as Braveheart and it should finish with the line : 'We will always take your freedom!'.

|4.19.06 @ 9:12AM|#

When "morphing" first came in I remember commercials showing politicians morphing into Hitler. A cartoon lizard would be a step up in civility.

|4.19.06 @ 9:15AM|#

Yeah, a lizard is pretty polite.

If I had my hands on the mouse then I'd turn Dave Cameron into a massive walking, talking pecker. But this is the exact reason why I do not work in marketing.

Why didn't Kerry just ever make an advert poking fun at Bush's military credentials? Was he trying to 'be the better man'? (never works....)

R C Dean|4.19.06 @ 9:55AM|#

Why didn't Kerry just ever make an advert poking fun at Bush's military credentials?

Probably because being a fighter jock who volunteered for Vietnam isn't exactly the kiss of death for a Republican candidate.

|4.19.06 @ 10:02AM|#

Probably because being a fighter jock who volunteered for Vietnam isn't exactly the kiss of death for a Republican candidate.

I thought he went AWOL or forged his medicals or something like that?

Bare in mind I think I got this from Michael Moore so I wouldn't be surprised to know it's a load of crap.

|4.19.06 @ 10:33AM|#

Why didn't Kerry just ever make an advert poking fun at Bush's military credentials?

I recently caught an explanation that claimed the faked documents about Bush's National Guard service that Dan Rather went public with put an end to Kerry being able to use his own war hero theme effectively. News outlets and the media didn't want to touch anything related to military service during Vietnam so the swiftboat veterans and their ads dominated that aspect of the campaign from that point on.

|4.19.06 @ 11:01AM|#

But this is brilliant. I'm never going to be able to look at David Cameron again and not associate him with a nasty little shape-shifting lizard.

If only American political ads were half so effective.

|4.19.06 @ 11:04AM|#

Mark
At the risk of starting the whole 2004 campaign discussion (which I don't want to do), if I remember correctly:

Bush had a relatively high draft number, he volunteered for the National Guard. While there he probably got preferential treatment (moved to a different unit, time off to work on a campaign) and may or may not have missed some requirements to fulfill his obligation.

Kerry had a much lower draft number and volunteered for the Navy. I won't go into the controversies about him there but he was repeatedly asked to release all the documents of his tour. He never did. Sometimes he provided limited information, sometimes he said he would request "all of my records from the Navy", but I think at this point those records are in the hands of the National Archives. To this day, the documents are still not released, even after telling Tim Russert in an interview last year he would release everything (if I remember correctly Russert was having none of the word play/doublespeak). Not that it matters, he won?t get the nomination again.

The swift boat guys would not have had nearly the traction they did if Kerry had run on something. His campaign consisted on 1) I was in Vietnam, 2) Bush has screwed everything up, & 3) I was in Vietnam. Seriously, he used the Vietnam service and when they swift boat ads started, the pro-Kerry camp started the ?I can?t believe we are focusing on a war that ended over 25 years ago? mantra. I really thought we were going to see a shift in the election and then he came out for his nomination with the ?John Kerry reporting for duty? salute. The fact that he couldn?t point to anything he had done in the Senate, or anything since Vietnam, spoke volumes.

FWIW, I?m not a Bush apologist, I just think that Kerry was a horrible candidate/campaigner.

As far as dirty politics go, I think the low point was the NAACP ad with James Byrd's daughter saying that Bush not signing the "hate crimes" bill was like having her father murdered all over again. Maybe if that bill had been signed the guy given a life sentence could serve 10 life sentences and the 2 guys sentenced to death would be deader after their execution.

|4.19.06 @ 11:42AM|#

Clever commercial but doesn�t tell me anything new about �Dave� or any other politician that I didn�t already know. The duration of the commercial would make it unlikely to do well in the US market; I think people would change the channel or Tevo right through it. In order for most commercials, political or otherwise, to have an audience they have to grab you, make their pitch and finish before you know your watching a commercial.

|4.19.06 @ 11:44AM|#

Clever commercial but doesn�t tell me anything new about �Dave� or any other politician that I didn�t already know. The duration of the commercial would make it unlikely to do well in the US market; I think people would change the channel or Tevo right through it. In order for most commercials, political or otherwise, to have an audience they have to grab you, make their pitch and finish before you know your watching a commercial.

|4.19.06 @ 11:54AM|#

I have to admit, the idea of Labour having a go at the conservatives for stealing ideas makes me chuckle.

Jeff P.|4.19.06 @ 12:39PM|#

I've often commented that the libertarian party should take sound bites of political pundits hurling diatribes at each other and play them over footage of two monkeys throwing feces at each other.
Twenty five seconds of that, followed by a full scree graphic: "Paid for by the Libertarian Party."
If they had the cash they should use footage from that Trek episode where the transporter splits Kirk into two versions, one reckless, aggressive, and quick to violence, the other mild, unfocused, and unable to muster up the resolve to take action...

R C Dean|4.19.06 @ 1:21PM|#

I really thought we were going to see a shift in the election and then he came out for his nomination with the "John Kerry reporting for duty" salute.

I think it was James Lileks who pointed out that a few elections ago that would have been "I'm Bill Clinton, and I'm reporting for booty!"

Although Kerry got more votes than Clinton, so maybe Kerry wasn't as dumb as he looked.

|4.19.06 @ 1:48PM|#

The cartoon needs Steve Irwin grabbing the chameloen and saying "ain't he a beauty"? and "You are OK, mate"///

But instead of chameleon, he shold have been turned into a croc...

Yeah, that's an idea for a commercial

Have the candidate speak and put the legend "That's a lot of crock.."

Then he morphs into a croc and Steve Irwin wrestles him...

|4.19.06 @ 2:37PM|#

David Icke must have bolted out of his chair at this.

larry

dhex|4.19.06 @ 3:03PM|#

holy fecking shite the david icke crew must be LOSING THEIR GODDAMN MINDS right now. (even worse than before!)

Andrew Ian Dodge|4.19.06 @ 6:42PM|#

Yep Icke is going to be all over this stuff.