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Let me start by saying that I am not a professional (and when you read what I wrote, that will be abundantly clear!), but I had an idea for an ad in response to the stories that Bush is defining Kerry. I think this is a good time to define the liar-in-chief, before he moves farther and does irreprable damage. I think Kerry needs to go to work; if done right this will coincide with Clarke, and if he waits much longer the tide will turn away from him.
So, here's my ad idea: Scene: family at the dinner table. Preteen kid (son, 8-9 years old) is talking loudly: “An’ there’s monsters all around us! An’ they chased me around the yard and threw rocks at me! An’ they spit acid that burned right through Jimmy’s bike! An’ they blew up a big building downtown too!” Cut to: Father sitting at table, raising up the paper he’s reading to avoid looking at son. Cut to: Mother standing at sink, blowing through hair hanging over her forehead, obviously tired and frustrated. Cut to: Teenaged sister sitting at table, rolling her eyes with a disgusted look on her face. Cut back to: Son who is becoming more agitated and louder: “An’ they’re all ALIENS! They’re from Mars! We have to stop them! They make everyone their slaves an’ they talk for them an’ make them try to hurt us! They HATE us! We’re not their slaves an’ they HATE US BECAUSE THEY CAN’T CONTROL US!” Pan back to show whole kitchen: Son is now standing and yelling, Father turns away from the table and actively ignores son while reading paper, Mother is bent over the sink in exhaustion, Sister is turned away from the table with her hands over her ears. Son: “But I showed ‘em! I stood up to ‘em an’ kicked ‘em in the knee and they all ran away because they’re so scared of me! But they’ll come back, I know they will!” Voiceover: “When all you do is lie, and the lies get to be outrageous, everyone quits listening to you.” Fade to black. Voiceover: “Isn’t it time we quit listening to the Bush Administration lie to us?”
It's short and to the point, and it takes the kind of statements that the Bushies have been making and puts them in the context of a kid (which when you think about the kind of lies they have been saying, it's about the right scale) making stories for attention.
Anyway, the thing is, IMO that we need to start defining Bush right now, because that will help nullify any attack they try in the future. When they try their smear campaigns after we have defined them as liars and smearers, it will just reinforce our message. but it has to be done soon, before Bush is successful at defining Kerry as a waffler, because after that, any new idea will be used to "prove" that Kerry flip-flops. When I think back to Carter's presidency I remember that one of the things that hurt him from the RNC were the anti-Democratic party ads, and they were extremely negative and pretty mean: The ad with a Tip O'Neill/Kennedy type telling his chauffer to keep driving because they can't be out of gas; The shrinking dollar ad; I know there were more, but those are the two that I can remember right now. The ads they put out were very damaging to Carter and Democrats in general, and were never really countered. So, I think it's vital that we start defining back, before it's too late.
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