First, the ad -- which, I'll remind you, is produced by the official campaign of the President of the United States of America. Commentary/questions to follow:
"Your first time shouldn't be with just anybody."
Question: Is this Lena Dunham person famous? Marginally. I thought I recognized her but had to look her up to be sure It turns out she wrote and directed a successful indie film in 2010, and is currently the star and creator of the HBO show, Girls.
Question: How old is she? She's 26, so she was eligible to vote in 2004 and 2008 -- but evidently chose not to. I guess John Kerry couldn't quite do the trick, like binders and Big Bird apparently have. (Update: She says she voted for Obama last time).
Question: Is this supposed to be funny? I'm not entirely sure. Presumably so, but it isn't. Even if you're not put off by the unsubtle sexual innuendo, the whole virginity gag gets old after about 15 seconds.
Question: Why? One has to assume that Team Obama is relying heavily on low-propensity voters showing up this time around. Nevertheless, is it worth the trade-off of potentially alienating suburban moms in order to appeal to urban, college-aged, hipsterrific women? And if the Lenas of the world couldn't motivate themselves to vote for The One back when he was really cool, how likely are they to abandon, say, their ironic scrapbooking project or whatever to do so this time around?
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Question: Will this spot even appeal to its intended target audience? I can't really say. It seems super lame to me, but I'll leave it to Katie to deal with this one. So stay tuned for that.
I'll leave you with this: A liberal SuperPAC is running against Mitt Romney in Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. It accuses him of economic treason:
Mitt Romney left his management job at Bain Capital years ago, but two Democratic outside groups are hoping to make the Republican presidential candidate suffer for Bain’s decisions today to outsource jobs to China. In a new TV- and web-based messaging push, the labor super PAC Workers’ Voice and the Democratic super PAC Patriot Majority slam Romney for a controversial Bain decision to move jobs at the company Sensata from Illinois to China. The move has spurred protests in Illinois, including from the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The two groups will run TV commercials on the story in three markets: Youngstown, Ohio; Green Bay, Wis., and Pittsburgh. A strategist said the Pittsburgh ads are aimed at Ohio voters in the same market. Workers’ Voice and Patriot Majority will also run display ads, Facebook ads and search ads on Google and Bing. The ads, which cost just under a million dollars, label Romney an "economic traitor" who built a company that now hurts U.S. workers.
Romney left Bain in 1999. Fact-checkers have found "no evidence" that any outsourcing of American jobs occurred while he was at the helm, yet this Lefty group is trying to punish Romney for decisions being made more than a decade after his departure. If that's not pitiful enough, they're using rank fear-mongering to do it, tossing around words like "traitor" to smear him. Traitor. It's more desperate than it is outrageous, but it's still pretty outrageous.
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