07.15.12
The Goldwater moment?
In the election of ’64, Lyndon Johnson considered Barry Goldwater an easy mark. Goldwater, a John Bircher, jabbered about nuclear war so much the Johnson campaign made a famous commercial, the Daisy ad, that helped destroy the man.
Goldwater appeared so extreme and virulently anti-Communist he conveyed the message he was ready to take down the entire world, to turn it into a cinder with America’s nuclear arsenal, to stop it.
The power to hit the nail on the head is now in President Obama’s corner. Mitt Romney has a frightening message, too, just like Barry Goldwater. He is ready to turn the rest of the country into an economic cinder, with the spoil reserved for the fittest at the very top. And the President is right to show the truth of it, having a potential “Daisy ad” in this:
The alert may notice the producer’s of the video have added varying digital reverberations to Romney’s “sing.” Some making it sound as if from a distant claustrophobic lo-fi radio broadcast, some from a dim tunnel, like an empty bomb-shelter. It’s an artful and devastating touch. My hat is off.
Showing Mitt Romney as he is can scare people. He is as inhuman to the daily experience as he appears to be. He’s a person who has created the image that if you took a phone call from him you’d get an invoice, as a file attachment from Bain, to the amount of $10,000 for 60 seconds of consult. The ad, without much effort, is loathsome.
And it’s not like it’s the first. Mitt Romney is a stationary target, one furnishing an always bigger and more inviting bull’s-eye. Outside his class Mitt Romney is appalling. But this commercial has the President’s image and voice in it up front, setting it apart from all the rest. He’s telling us, “Take a look at this guy, can you believe it?”
Mitt Romney is the symbol of the high-button asshole, the antithesis to whatever delusions anyone may cling to about the America dream. The more he appears on screen, the more people must turn away knowing the only reason he’s succeeded in life is because he’s had a mountain of cash to start and that he was in a place where “I like being able to fire people” (1 billion hits on Google) was the Golden Rule.
Mitt Romney is a gift to the art of lampoon.