The ad referenced here is getting alot of grief for being rascist.
Isn’t the sterotypical Playboy bunny white and dumb? Makes perfect sense to me.
That is the point. In the South, some still perceive a white woman dating a black man to be “miscegenation”. This ad portrays Ford as a black man who lusts after white women, a concept that would anger some white voters.
To be frank, I didn’t see it that way until someone mentioned that I might. My reaction was simply “The guy likee his bimbo”, typical election year crapola. I rather doubt it, myself. Even in the most reactionary South, or even in staunchly liberal Texas, racism is no longer acceptable, to admit it would be shameful, it would be an admission of backward ignorance. It would more likely inspire a tick towards voting for Ford in order to deny any such atavistic leanings. YMM. of course, V.
I don’t think the fight against ignorance is going any better in the South than it is elsewhere.
Hopefully the number of people who would vote against Ford at the thought of him lusting after a white woman is very small. But it is more than zero. In a hard fought campaign, every vote counts. Sure, it’s a race baiting ad. Sure the Republicans should be ashamed of it. But it just might work.
I don’t think it’s all-out racist, but yeah, the overtones are undeniable. If I was the Republican candidate (whose name I forget at the moment), I’d demand the bimbo scene in the ad be pulled. IF the positions attributed him in the ads are fairly attributed, the ad can stand on it’s own w/o the bimbo scene.
Those who might be angered by miscegenation are probably not likely to be Ford voters. You could be right about swing voters, moderates and independents who perceive the ad as manipulative and vote against Corker.
As I’ve said in other threads, when a campaign gets nasty and personal, it’s not about trying to win anybody over, it’s about trying to suppress turnout by alienating the uncertain, undecided center, thereby making the votes of the hardcore supporters more important relative to the whole.
I perceive the ad as an attempt to energize the Republican base.
Fear Itself and Spoke have this one right. This add is about getting the cave dwellers to the polls. As someone who lived in Tn for 5 years, I can tell you there are plenty of them there. The “beauty” of this ad is, the Republican candidate can disavow it b/c it was made by a third party. Apparently, it wasn’t even made by the RNC. So Corker, the R candidate says “It’s distasteful.”, and benefits from both (1) the cave dwellers to whom the ad is aimed, and (2) the moderates by saying that he disagrees with the ad and wishes it would be taken down.
I actually think the first scene in the ad is in particularly poor taste – a black woman saying, “He looks like a nice guy, isn’t that enough?”
I’ve seen worse – the notorious Jesse Helms “Hands” ad springs immediately to mind – but yes, I think there is clearly an element of race-baiting in the ad. The whole thing ought to be pulled.
You can see the ad and judge for yourself here.
Might there come a time when ads like these are not assumed to be race baiting?
Here’s a classic … I walked into my bedroom this morning to get ready for work and turned on the TV. Before I found the remote to switch it to Fox News, I caught a little bit of the Today Show where they were doing piece on the dif between Krispy Kremes and Dunkin Donuts.
They were interviewing people on the street and asking their preference. A black lady says, “Krispy Crack is what we call it”. I kid you not !!
Race baiting at The Today Show… unbelievable !!
It’s lame, poorly produced, and ineffective. But call me crazy, I don’t see the racism.
You guys are really stretching the bounds of logic on this one.
The Playboy bunny was white because Playboy bunnies are stereotypically blonde caucasians. If the ad had replaced her with a black Playboy bunny, Fear Itself would doubtless have condemned Republicans for deviating from the stereotypical Playboy bunny. What’s the matter? Blacks can’t date white people? Racist! Miscegenation!
I think both you and luci are both right. There is no need to swing the racists but it may swing the puritans.
On a related note, I saw the Michael J Fox commercial and I have no doubt that he went off his medication for that commercial and in this area it has had a significant impact on the overnight polls. So people like Limbaugh get on the air and call Michael J Fox a liar.
later recanted after calls from his own listenership made him think twice.
Talk about pot calling the kettle black, Limbaugh says:
When you are talking about the Michael J Fox ad, and you want to convey the notion that Michael J Fox is being deceptive, and in effect the Democrats are dishonest. Make no mistake that’s what the intent is. See I can do it too.
Rush does make a good point about sacred cows and why Michael J Fox should be just as subject to scrutiny as anyone else that thrusts themselves into the public arena but Rush Limbaugh was basically calling Fox a liar for going off his meds to show the full impact of Parkinson’s disease. Make no mistake about it, he was calling him a liar because he thought his audience would glom onto any accusations of Democratic deceit.
Interestingly, many of the talking heads I watched yesterday were certain that the very end (when the biimbo says “call me”) is racist. Chris Matthews was dead certain. But I didn’t see it. The thing is, if that was racist, then the only way to do that add in a non-racist way would be to use a Black woman-- ie, keep everything along strcit racial lines. There has been a big to-do made of Ford’s visit to the Playboy mansion (or something like that), so the idea of using that in a negative ad seems pretty natural (natural, that is, if you’re a slimy politician).
I like Ford. I think he’s the kind of Democrat who could do well in national politics, and I’m sure he’ll get there eventually, if not this time. What happens if he loses-- does he go back to the House, or something else?
Not possible. A Parkinson’s patient as advanced as Mr. Fox would be entirely incapable of speaking at all, never mind with tics and spasms. Those spasms and tics are a result of his medication. He has a choice of some freedom of motion hindered by spasms or no freedom of motion at all.
http://thinkprogress.org/ is as good a place to start as any. About a third of the way down the page, at this point.
Limbaugh’s full of crap about Fox. L-Dopa causes those tremors. So why do Parkinson’s patients take it? Because without it, they’d have no movement at all. Fox had to be on his meds because without them, he’d be a statue on-camera in that ad.
They could have hired me to do it (if they paid me enough) and they would have gotten an Oscar-calibre performance, as it would have been a sincere request.
“Call me, Harold.”
I think he’s cute even though he’s a little odd looking sometimes. Kinda looks like my dad circa 1965 except with a smaller head. My dad has a huge head.