February 20, 2015

Best political commercial ever?

Regardless of your stand on the upcoming Israeli elections (if you have one) you have to admit that this may be one of the most clever political commercials you've ever seen, and I wonder why we don't use humor more often in political commercials here?  It's almost always disarming, and if done right it can engender a lot of good will.  What humor we do see here tends to be mocking and caustic, not the self-effacing example of Netanyahu - I particularly like the scene of him eating popcorn while watching one of his own commercials on TV.

And yet there's still a message to this commercial - perhaps delivered as ham-fistedly as most, but it is a commercial, after all.  We've seen presidents do humorous pieces for events such as the Washington Correspondents' Dinner, so why not use them even earlier, when they're candidates?  The U.S. often exports political consultants to other countries; maybe we can start importing some of their ideas as well.

1 comment:

  1. There have been a few - in Russ Feingold's first campaign he took viewers on a short tour of his home, stopping to open a closet: "See - no skeletons!" And Paul Coverdell, when he beat Wyche Fowler for the Senate in Georgia a few years ago, had one with a little old lady singing (poorly) how she would put Coverdell in the Senate and kick Fowler out, ending with the line "That Fowler is so bad, he's worse than Ted Kennedy!"


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