I had the privilege of moving to Arizona back in February. And as dysfunctional as California's government is, you can still tell the differences between living in a blue state and living in a red state. But there are a lot of similarities too. Submitted for your approval: comparing a political attack ad from each state.
Let's start by taking John McCain, our sitting US Senator. (no, seriously, take him?) John McCain has served as Senator from Arizona since I was 2 years old, and before that, he was in the House of Representatives for 4 years. There was a time when John McCain was a reasonable man - I was only 15 during the 2000 primaries, but I remember thinking even then that though I knew I wasn't a Republican, he seemed like a pretty decent guy to be President if he had to be. Of course, anyone who followed the 2008 elections knows something changed in those 8 years. He went from a reasonable, middle-of-the-road politician to an out-of-touch, disconnected from the issues, far right politician.
Now, I could go into how John McCain recently had a hissy fit on the floor of the Senate and said he wouldn't cooperate anymore with Democrats (uhh...to make that threat, you actually had to have at some point cooperated with Democrats) and was basically going to spend the rest of his term sitting it out. Oh, by the way, he's running for re-election this year. An apt campaign slogan would seem to be: "Vote for me so I can collect a fat government salary and sit on my ass and not do anything." And they call Democrats socialists? Hah!
But what I really want to talk about is a new video attacking his Republican primary opponent, Jd Hayworth, former Congressman, political talk radio host, and friend of Jack Abramoff. Now, it's not officially from the John McCain camp, I think, as it's from "Friends of John McCain," whatever that means, and McCain didn't "approve this message" at the end. Plus, I've seen John McCain re-election ads on TV here and this one has far fewer American flags, gravely serious voice overs, and pictures of Arizona's beautiful natural landscapes that I think McCain shows because he would love to drill for oil in them. I'll blame Citizens United for my confusion about the ad's origin, since it's an easy scapegoat, and move on. Anyway, take a look at the ad.
I think it's an example of truly bizarre post-modern political advertisement that basically parodies itself. I still have no clue what the point of the Dracula thing is. I appreciate the ridicule of the whole "birther" thing but using The Lion King to represent Kenya? I wonder if they paid for the rights to use those movie clips in their ads. After all, no free market conservative would ever take someone's hard earned work and not give them credit or payment for it.
And, of course, while it's fun to mock Hayworth's gay marriage stance with the man-horse marriages (does anyone else think how he said "man horse" in the ad sounded like how Al Gore would say ManBearPig?), but the fact remains that when it comes to policy, Hayworth and McCain are both against same-sex marriage (to be a fair liberal, I should also point out that it's a position Obama shares).
This comes on the heels of the great "Demon Sheep" ad that Carly Fiorina released a little while back in California. It's great, it has sheep and it has lightning and it has lots of pretty white people that are supposed to represent real Californians.
So I will say one thing about ads like this - attack ads have been around since that little girl in the daisy field died in a nuclear explosion, but only recently have we started to create ads that David Lynch would be proud of. As politics becomes more and more disconnected from reality (see: the last 10 years), I can see political ads becoming more and more of a postmodern art form. I'd like to think Andy Warhol would simultaneously disgusted and proud.
I'm literroy and I approve this message.