Thursday, September 23, 2004

Heres a Secret.

I'll tell you a secret that no one seems to want to acknowledge or they don't seem to get. The real reason why the swiftboat ads did the damage to Kerry that they did. And it had nothing to do with his betrayal, or the guys who were angry, or whether he deserved his medals or threw them over a fence. I don't think either campaign gets this. They did the damage they did because of what Kerry looked like in the ads. Stay with me here. We are a visual society. We are obsessed with stars and good looks, lets face it. We allow some to be less than gorgeous but they have to remind us of our grandfather or dad, mother, or grandmother. They have to have intelligence and/or charm. Trust me, in the work I do I am around those people who don't give a fig about politics or government. If you point them toward the voting booth on Nov. 2nd, then they pull the lever ,touch the screen, or punch the ballot for "who they like" and it doesn't matter what the candidate's position on Iraq, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, or health care is. They just "like" the guy. What hurt Kerry with the swiftboat ads was that he looked like an insufferable snob, petulant and smug. But the worst photo was the one they showed over and over, of Kerry picking at his face! Ewwww, it was just gross. If Bush wants to win this election just keep popping that pic up and he WILL win in a landslide.
I know this sounds shallow, and I hate to say this, but we all know that shallow is something Americans do best.
That's why I was amused by the story of Bush's National Guard Record. Do you think that the average joe or jane was listening to all that convoluted nonsense? Of course not. All they saw was the picture of a rugged handsome pilot who is now our President. We need to keep popping that picture up as well.
Someone call the Bush campaign...lets keep this on the DL....;-)