Salon.com > political ads

When Don Draper toppled a dictator

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:10:00 +0000

Close your eyes and picture America’s most famous ad man, the fictional Don Draper of the cable TV hit Mad Men. Now push aside your favorite scenes of Don’s bedroom antics, bourbon-fueled lunches, and persuasive client pitches and think: over five seasons of storytelling, what has the dashing ladies’ man done that’s truly made an impact on the world outside his agency office suite?

In the cinema, however, the story is different. Set in Chile in 1988, the recent Best Foreign Film Oscar nominee No features the equally handsome Santiago ad man René Saavedra (played by Gael García Bernal, no less), who heads a campaign against Augusto Pinochet. The impetus is the Chilean military dictator’s call for a referendum to decide his permanence in power. The opposition responds by persuading Saavedra, a young advertising executive, to take on its “No” — meaning no Pinochet — campaign.

Pick of the week: This is how you overthrow a dictator

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 01:00:00 +0000

Early in Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s Oscar-nominated “No,” a young adman is having an argument with his boss about whose side the Americans are on. It’s the late 1980s, near the tail end of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, and Lucho (Alfredo Castro), the owner of the ad agency, is berating the younger René (Mexican star Gael García Bernal) for supporting a “No” vote in the upcoming national referendum on the Pinochet regime. Only Commies support the “No” cause, Lucho sneers; the financial support is coming from Cuba, Nicaragua and the Soviet Union. Besides, the Yankees and the CIA are behind Pinochet, and they’ll never allow him to be defeated. You’re wrong about that, René calmly insists; this time the Yankees are with us.

Mitt hits the panic button

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:34:00 +0000

With just six days before Election Day it’s time to ask: Who’s going to win? If you ask the Romney campaign, they’ve got this thing in the bag. "The race comes down to independents. We lead among independents,” Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said on a conference call with reporters on the state of the race this morning. “The firewall that I think [the Obama campaign] talked about was Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio. Right now their firewall is burning,” added Rich Beeson, Romney’s political director. Meanwhile, Karl Rove predicts Romney will sail to victory with at least 279 electoral votes (“probably more”); the “unskewed” polls show Romney winning in a massive landslide with 321 electoral votes to Obama’s 217; and Breitbart bloggers say “Mitt Romney is now running away with this election.” Indeed, national polls slightly favor Romney.

Newt’s revolting appeal to voters

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 15:45:00 +0000

Mix together every right-wing fever dream of the Obama era, add some apocalyptic b-roll and epic music, and bake for three minutes in Newt Gingrich-style grandiosity and you get this amazing new ad from the super PAC that supported Gingrich, which apparently still exists. If every other ad of the cycle was a music video, this ad is "Thriller."

The video is an imagining of what another four years under Obama would look like, and it’s not too rosy. Picture turning the whole country into blighted Detroit while gays run wild and churches are converted to mosques. There are lots and lots of riots. Riots in the inner cities (naturally), riots in the Middle East, riots at gas stations, riots in supermarkets, riots in the hospital over Obamacare. Fortunately, Obama appears to have implemented martial law so there's plenty of riot cops too. Meanwhile, gay men get married -- to each other! -- in modest little ceremonies by the water as crosses are chopped down with chainsaws and churches are converted to mosques. Abroad, Muslims are totally pissed at Obama for appeasing them, or something, and Iran builds literally dozens of nuclear sites. Florida also loses all of its electricity for some reason and the Statue of Liberty's face becomes a skull. For good measure, there’s even an allusion to George Orwell’s "1984," or rather Apple’s classic commercial riffing on the book.

Karl Rove unleashes the swiftboats

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 15:25:00 +0000

Karl Rove is partying like it’s 2004 — resorting to a theme he used in George W. Bush’s reelection campaign and reinventing it in a massive ad campaign being run by his superPAC, American Crossroads, that casts Barack Obama and the Democrats as soft on terror and evokes the fear that gripped the nation in the wake of 9/11.

The ad, “Act of Terror,” which started airing on October 18, is being heralded by some on the right as a stinging rebuke to President Obama’s foreign policy because it insinuates that Obama intentionally misled the American people in the wake of the assassination of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya in September.

It is based on one of the most dramatic moments of the second Obama-Romney debate in which Mitt Romney suggests that Obama purposefully put forth a false narrative to bolster the impression that he has been successful in fighting terror. It is artfully edited to omit the fact that moderator Candy Crowley stopped Romney in midstream during the debate and confirmed that President Obama did in fact use the phrase “act of terror” in a speech on September 12, the day after the tragedy.