So Mitt Romney posted this on the inter-webs this week:
At first glance, this appears to be a follow-up on Romney’s mockery of Obama at the Republican National Convention:
President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans — [pauses for audience laughter(!)] — and to heal the planet. MY promise is to help you and your family.
But then you see that picture in the video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and say, WTF?
I’m afraid the premise of this inane ad is, well, so inane that you’ll just have to watch it yourself to see — but please put on your head vise first to avoid rapid cranial expansion:
See, Obama supposedly promised he would “heal” the world, but — and I know this is going to shock all Americans, particularly those voters so disgusted by both political parties that they are still undecided — there are still bad things happening in the world!
Darn you Barack Obama for not ending all strife, for not bringing about world peace!
I guess this is Romney’s closing argument: “If you’re disappointed President Obama hasn’t delivered on his ‘promise’ to solve all the world problems, vote for me. I won’t promise to heal anything, so you’ll never be disappointed in me.”
This ad is ludicrous. Aside from the fact that Obama was talking about global warming, the President merely said that future generations would say “this was the moment … our planet began to heal” — not that he’d solve every problem in four years.
I suppose team Romney wouldn’t run an ad this late in the game that they had not tested with swing voters. But those kind of focus groups are flawed in part because they test the ads under ideal circumstances — people paying close attention and then thinking and talking about the ads.
In fact, many people stop paying attention to the TV screen when the umpteenth political ad comes on, so as a rule, I think, an ad ought to work for one of those low-information/low-interest voters who might be in the kitchen or on an iPad while listening to the TV. For them, this ad accomplishes very little.
I look forward to the Romney ad featuring hospitals filled with people that Obama didn’t heal.
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
CNN had an article tonight entitled “Romney has the wind at his back..”
With the election so close, I think it’s officially time to start worrying Joe.
Nah. Stick with fivethirtyeight.com
Not so sure those adds don’t work. Mainly they are just there to create negative emotions and associate those with the candidate. The real work is done in the unconscious brain, which is the target of programming. This works best if the viewer isn’t giving it much conscious attention, but simply letting his emotional brain strengthen the connection of the emotion of unease with the target.
Yes, negative emotions activated in cynical attempt to suppress voter turnout.
It works best on the reptilian portion of the brain, hence its great success. Probably has something to do with ingestion of large quantities of high fructose corn syrup and consequent insulin resistance in the brain leading to a pre-dementing state.