Last night, I watched a Young Sheldon rerun and a little bit of Love Island, on the CBS affiliate for metro Detroit. I think it was during the first commercial break for Love Island that I saw a Biden Harris ad.
Then when the show came back on, I turned off the TV. I don’t really care to watch shows like Love Island. I prefer to hear late night comedians summarize the most important developments for me. But thanks to you know who, late night comedians just don’t have time to dissect what’s going on in “reality” dating shows.
Later on I tuned in to a rerun of Late Night with Seth Meyers, which Seth Meyers recorded in what he calls “the captain’s quarters,” not the studio. I saw Biden Harris ads in almost every commercial break.
Of course Biden and Harris are advertising in prime time and late night on CBS and NBC. But they’re also advertising, to a lesser extent, on “auxiliary” channels like Heroes & Icons (H & I) and Start TV. In metro Detroit, Heroes & Icons is 2-4 (2-1 is the Fox affiliate), Start TV is 62-2 (62-1 is the CBS affiliate). I don’t know the channel numbers on cable or satellite.
I usually watch at least one hour of the “All Star Trek” line-up on H & I. And some mornings I watch one or two episodes of Medium on Start TV. Last night, I saw a Biden Harris ad on H & I last night, and another Biden Harris ad on Start TV this morning.
I don’t think I’ve seen the same Biden Harris ad air twice on H & I or Start TV. This is important, because the ads on “auxiliary” channels tend to come from a very small selection.
A few months ago, it seemed like every commercial break on the H & I “Day Shift” line-up started with the Limu Emu shrieking like a police siren. Now Honeycomb (the cereal) has an even more pervasive ad running at what seems all hours of the day and all hours of the night.
Had you ever heard of Gabi dot com? I probably would never had if it wasn’t for H & I. To mix things up, Gabi had one ad with CEO Hanno Fichtner and another with CMO Nick Fairbairn. I looked their names up on Google only to check spelling.
It looks like the Gabi ad with Fichtner has been dropped on account of his slight German accent; the Gabi ad with Fairbairn continues to run quite frequently during both the H & I “Day Shift” and “All Star Trek.”
But the one ad that seems to irk the vast majority of “All Star Trek” viewers is the ASPCA ad that shows several dogs who’ve been victims of horrendous abuse. I get the feeling that those viewers who complain agree with the ASPCA’s cause, but the tiresome frequency of the ads discourages them from getting involved.
So I think it’s good to run a few different Biden Harris ads on the “auxiliary” channels, frequently enough to make a positive impact and reach those viewers who don’t watch the “main” channels, but not so frequently as to give those viewers a negative impression of Biden and Harris.
Meanwhile, I haven’t seen any Trump ads on any TV channels lately. Weeks ago I saw an ad for David Horowitz’s book Blitz: How Trump Will Smash the Left and Win on H & I. The book couldn’t be titled How Trump Will Win the Election Fair and Square because Horowitz knows that won’t happen, and because it’s not what he wants to happen anyway.
More recently, on H & I, there was an ad for an Election 2020 chess set. I count this one as a pro-Trump ad because the set’s makers pulled a Clint Eastwood, with empty podiums for the Democratic presidential nominee and his running mate.
Supposedly, they will send you the Democrats’ king and queen pieces once the nominee’s decided. It’s a little awkward, because Biden is included in the set as a rook. The set costs $39.99, plus shipping and handling. No thanks.
In a delicious bit of Drumpfschadenfreude, the Trump campaign has canceled several ad buys. The excuse in Arizona is that early voting there doesn’t start until next month. A wise decision when your campaign is as broke as a Trump casino.
The last Trump ad I saw on TV was one of those that claims that Biden lied about his academic credentials. It is true that Biden exaggerated how he did in law school at a campaign stop in 1988.
But the ad, according to PolitiFact, is missing some important context, like what was the question that prompted Biden to exaggerate in the first place, or the fact that Biden has not repeated those exaggerations in the past three decades.
It’s easy to miss that it’s a Trump ad because Trump barely appears in it. I actually thought it was from a PAC, because I couldn’t remember hearing Trump say “I approve this message” at the end. But Daniel Funke, the PolitiFact reporter, went to Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale for comment, not a PAC.
By the way, how’s Brad Parscale doing? Does he see a bright future for himself working for Trump, getting promoted to a more important position, maybe? Just kidding.
It was even longer ago that I last saw a Trump ad focusing on Trump and his “accomplishments.” It was an ad that shows the fat dumbass walking around like an old horror movie monster who’s just been awoken from a long slumber, and the monster is hungry and angry.
I imagine the conversation to get that footage of Trump walking around went something like this:
“Sir, I’m begging you! We need you to walk ten yards! I promise I will cry for the first time in my life!”
“You never cried as a baby?” Trump asks.
“Never, sir.”
“What’s the slope of the ground?”
“Zero degrees.”
“Zero what?”
“It’s completely level.”
“What?”
“It’s totally flat. It’s flat and beautiful.”
“Good. But keep the Garia Monaco on standby.”
“Alright. Good… one yard… two yards… three yards...”
“Ow, my bone spurs! This will have to do! Bring the cart, damn it!”
I almost thought the narrator was going to say “Trump will make America great again again.” Of course Trump has not made America great ever. And given all the havoc he’s wreaked, America now needs to be made great again. And Biden, not Trump, is the man to do that. With the help of Democrats in Congress and in the state governments, of course.
Republican John James claims to be a "job creator." That claim needs some asterisks.
I’ve also noticed a trend: it seems that when you buy ads on TV, you can specify when those ads air in relation to other ads (not sure about the pricing, though). For example, John James (R) seems to have asked that his ad, in which he claims to be his own man, runs immediately after the ad that claims he’s in Betsy DeVos’s pocket.
James is hoping to unseat Senator Gary Peters (D-Michigan) as the junior senator from this state. Normally I would believe James about being his own man, even though he’s a Republican. Except James has already run a bunch of deceitful ads against Peters, and on the campaign trail James lies about his record as a “job creator.” So yeah, James is probably deep in DeVos’s pocket. I wager that the counter ad was her idea, and James replied “Aye, aye, ma’am!” and saluted.
Note that Peters has a nearly perfect attendance record for roll call votes, like 99%, and he votes the way I’d like him to vote probably 98% of the time. I don’t care if he’s missed a few low-impact, decision-free hearings in a narrow time frame carefully chosen by his opponent to make him look bad. Peters is a perfectly good incumbent, and there is no compelling reason whatsoever to replace him.
Can we honestly say that about the incumbent in the White House? Hell no. The reasons why not are abundantly documented in the Mueller report, tell-all books by former staffers, various newspapers, etc.
So I say, American voters, vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for president and vice president. And Michigan voters, vote for Gary Peters for senator.
P.S. Seth Meyers returns tonight, back in the studio, presumably without an audience. Stephen Colbert is probably holding off another week.
Wednesday, Sep 9, 2020 · 12:09:48 AM +00:00
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Alonso del Arte
Oops, spoke too soon. Saw a Trump ad, not sure on what channel, think it was one of the “main” ones.
The ad is mostly about Biden, how he’s supposedly part of the “radical left,” how he supposedly wants to give unconditional amnesty to undocumented immigrants and how he supposedly wants to defund the police.
It must be true, because Biden said “Yes, absolutely” in response to some question that may or may not have had anything to do with the police.
Wednesday, Sep 9, 2020 · 5:29:28 AM +00:00
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Alonso del Arte
Just saw the Trump ad about the “radical left” again, this time on a commercial break for Late Night with Seth Meyers on NBC. Then there was an ad for something else, followed by a Biden ad.
Meyers is back in the studio, but with a limited crew and no audience. I think he announced Michael Cohen as a guest later on this week.
As you know, Cohen is yet another one of those former Trump employees who’s written a tell-all book.
