Urgent Memo to the Obama Team
During WWII Frank Capra was commissioned to direct propaganda films to galvanize American public opinion. He struggled with how to rally our citizens to the war effort without mimicking the dishonarable methods being used by the Nazi regime we were fighting. He decided to use the Nazi’s own propaganda films against them. It was a brilliant move. Nazi films used to glorify the German conquests struck horror in everyone when viewed though an objective lense.
We need to learn from Capra before we loose another election. McCain and Palin are running many commercials that have been discredited by even the likes of Karl Rove. Yet they have been effective in the short term as reflected in the polls.
I believe the only way we could win at this point is to use those commercials against McCain and create an impression that nothing McCain states in his commercials is trustworthy. The more outrageous the commercial the greater the backlash should be.
How do we do this? We must re-brand McCain/Palin liars and we must do it quick. Just like the name "Quisling" in synonymous with the term "traitor", the name McCain must be made synonymous with "liar". I would not direct the commercial specifically at Palin. I think we should treat McCain and Palin like one person.
I envision a series of commercials that would be carefully tailored to avoid making us look like whiners. I also want a series of commercials that follow a script irrespective of the push back from McCain. We need to be in control and no longer on the defensive.
The commercials would operate on 2 levels. Both levels would adopt humor.
One level of commercials would play back portions of McCain/Palin’s statements and commercials (borrowing from Capra) and superimpose statements by major News organizations and even Carl Rove decrying their outright lack of credibility. Maybe a buzzer would go off every time a lie was told by McCain or Palin.
The second layer of commercials would be where the branding and humor would come in. I envision children telling tall tales and their parents saying "Don’t do a McCain". The parent then explains a McCain is a lie told to achieve an ill gotten gain.
The second layer of commercials would also have children asking their parents "What's a McCain" with the same response.
These commercials would complement each other and exist in an alternate universe where it is common knowledge that to "McCain" means "to lie" or to "say anything to distract people from their real interests like healthcare, the real war on terror, etc.".
These commercial would be humorous and light hearted, which would make them all the more effective and easier to defend. Think of it- Kids telling other kids not to do a McCain; parents telling their children not to do a McCain; teachers telling their students not to do a McCain- the possibilities are endless. These commercials would also take a page from McCain’s statement that having Obama portrayed as Moses was "lighthearted".
A series of commercials that became a cultural phenomenon and which assumed the term "McCain" had already entered our cultural lexicon as a term meaning "to lie" would lead people to doubt the veracity and sincerity of anything the McCain/Palin team said and could help turn the election. These commercials would be simple, light hearted and repetitive in their message.
We should start this campaign today to brand McCain/Palin as liars though a series of dead serious but light hearted commercials today before it’s too late.