By Kevin Rogers
Assistant Opinion Editor
We’ve seen some pretty crazy advertisements this election cycle from outside groups seeking to influence the presidential race. We’ve seen Chuck Norris warn Americans about “1,000 years of darkness” should President Barack Obama win re-election. We’ve seen liberal super-PAC Priorities USA link Mitt Romney’s leadership at Bain Capital to the specific death of an employee’s wife.
But apparently, the outside groups decided to save the most disturbing advertisements for the final weeks of the campaign. One exploits children, and the other throws the elderly into the mix.
One of the ads, produced by The Future Children Project, is a two-minute and 21 second, black-and-white music video featuring a choir of children singing about the future of America: the future of America should President Obama not be re-elected, according to a Oct. 27 Daily Caller story.
The song has a catchy tune, but sinisterly dark lyrics. Take, “Imagine an American/ Where strip mines are fun and free/ Where gays can be fixed/ And sick people just die.” Or, “We haven’t killed all the polar bears/ But it’s not for lack of trying/ Big Bird is sacked. The Earthy is cracked/ And the atmosphere is frying.”
It’s a lovely song for a choir of elementary school kids, don’t you think? According to its website, The Future Children Project is tasked with mobilizing voters for Obama. It asks a simple question: “What would the children of the future say if we let them down this November?”
The video makes a decent point in principle; the votes made by adults today will certainly affect the adults of the future. In theory, voting for children’s sakes could drive a vote for either party, depending on the voter’s ideology.
The problem with this video is how it exploits children for a negative political message. We get annoyed when campaigns or organizations overuse children in positive campaign messages. We don’t need to have children singing about a post-Romney wasteland. It would be just as disturbing, and just as wrong, to have children singing a paranoid, right-wing anthem about fears of socialism and free abortions should Obama win again.
On the other end of the age spectrum, the second advertisement comes from documentary filmmaker Michael Moore and liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org. The ad, called “A Message from the Greatest Generation,” features elderly Americans, begging the younger generations to keep Obama in office. But where the first ad was creepy, this one is simply offensive.
It starts nicely enough; a group of grandfatherly looking men and grandmotherly looking women sit and talk about their first votes. They look to weave in a message about voter suppression which could benefit Romney. But that message soon loses out to crass sexual references and profanity.
If you can imagine your grandmother doing a George Carlin impression, you should get a pretty good idea of what the ad consists of.
One little old lady says if Romney wins, “We will burn this mother****er down.” Another says, “I’m going to track down Mitt Romney and give him the world’s biggest c***-punch.”
It’s certainly a fine addition to the civil discourse, and Moore was kind enough to tell his supporters that they “definitely shouldn’t watch it at work,” according to an Oct. 30 Politico story.
Unfortunately, any legitimate issue that Moore and MoveOn.org were trying to get across in their ad was lost in the spectacle.
This has been the major issue with the surge in outside groups making investments in this year’s elections. People have a right to speak about the candidates, even if that comes by way of advertisement. But if those advertisements are apocalyptically negative or disturbing (as evidenced by both of these ads), we miss out on substantive discussion on policy or vision.
We can’t stop such wild advertisements, but we can ignore them if we choose the rational path. We need to realize that while elections have consequences, the winner on Tuesday won’t seal the doom of the nation.
If not, we can keep consuming the idiocy and huddle in fear until the end of times.
