Demon Sheep

Scott Hardie | February 6, 2010
If you haven't seen Carly Fiorina's new campaign ad, it's simultaneously the best and worst ad made in years, designed to be talked about online just like we're doing:



In a culture where freaks like Lady Gaga have to keep going to wilder extremes to stand out from the crowd, is this the future of political campaigning? Being as bizarre as possible to generate attention? Financially, it's a big success; they've reached a wide audience with this crazy Internet meme without spending a single dollar on expensive TV airtime, and I admire the risk they took to achieve that. But this strikes me as another harbinger of the scary future for our ever dumber, ever cheaper, ever more mediocre culture.

Amy Austin | February 6, 2010
You mean our idiocracy?

Tony Peters | February 6, 2010
Cali is a mess, the population is decreasing (well the documented one anyway) and the Cost of living is increasing....they have bordered on declaring bankruptcy for a few years so something has to change

Jackie Mason | February 7, 2010
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Lori Lancaster | February 8, 2010
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Samir Mehta | February 8, 2010
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Scott Hardie | February 10, 2010
Jackie, you mention a split between voters who can be swayed with emotional manipulation and those turned off by it, which is an interesting way to measure voters. It doesn't coincide with the two ends of the political spectrum; it's an entirely different measure. It reminds me of a joke I recently read about Al Franken having a "liberal awesome" alignment if politics were D&D (first comment here). Psychologists and marketers will tell us that everybody is persuaded emotionally on some level, but the super-obvious level has its limits.