I remember, once upon a time, a little man with big ears and a lot of crazy ideas wanted to be President. Because he wasn’t a Democrat or a Republican, he had to think outside the box to get people to take him seriously. So he took to the burgeoning Internet (in 1992, this was a radical idea) and he bough time on the major television networks in half-hour blocks, kind of like infomercials but on in prime time. This fellow, Ross Perot, was laughed at. Sixteen years later, Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama buys up prime-time TV space, and nobody bats an eye.
It’s amazing how much can change in such a short time. Everyone thought Ross Perot was kind of crazy back in the 90’s. To be fair, he probably was a little crazy, but apparently he’s crazy like a fox because his ideas about unusual campaigns keep coming back, from the Internet use on all sides of the spectrum to the infomercial blocks Senator Obama took out tonight. I’m surprised nobody’s said, “It’s the economy, stupid!” yet. I can only wonder what Orson Scott Card would say about how easily the mainstream media traded TV time for big piles of cash.
It was a good idea when Mr. Perot did it, and it’s a good idea (if a bit too much) now that Sen. Obama is doing it. I can only imagine how much money this has cost the campaign, though. He bought half an hour of time across seven (NBC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC, BET, TV One, and Univision) networks! I could only dream of having that much money to throw away.
However, this close to the election, I’m sick of both candidates, every local candidate, and every single issues ad. I just want it all to go away. That’s why, instead of watching the Barackfomercial, I watched Ginger Snaps: Unleashed via my cable service’s On Demand menu. I figured an hour and a half of Canadian werewolf action was better for my mental health.
Tags: barack obama, presidential campaign, obama commercial, obama ad, obama informercial, politics, obama 30 minute ad
