Idea for Ad campaign series: "Is President Bush lying again?"

[zulchzulu]

On Meet the Press today, James Carville made an excellent point about Medicare premiums rising by 17.5 percent--the biggest rate jump in 15 years for seniors paying for Medicare.

Bush said this in his RNC acceptance speech the night before the skyrocketin rate announcement:
" I believe we have a moral responsibility to honor America's seniors.  Now, seniors are getting immediate help."

Yet, the very next day, the Medicare rate jumped.

Here's what Carville said:

"MR. CARVILLE:  Tim, I want to make a point here.  If the president knew about this increase on Thursday night and gave that speech, he misled this country. And somebody, some enterprising journalist, ought to find out exactly what he knew, because if he got up there and said what he did and looked the American people in the eye and knew that this news was coming out, that is a catastrophic event in this campaign, because he was presenting a case of satisfaction and optimism.  And the question is:  Did the president know that we were going to have this historically high increase that was going to be foisted on citizens the next day?"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5921259/

The big question and ad campaign should be "Did the President know?" Perhaps the ad could be set with seniors talking about the speech and then have the question asked.

The campaign series would be: Is President Bush lying again?

You have so much video of Bush saying one thing and doing another that it would be very successful in exposing Bush for the liar that he is. People know it, they just need to see it.

[private_ryan]

1. Is President Bush lying again?

wrong idea. You need to make him look like a liar, without saying it. Use his own words

[Southsideirish]

2. Why can't we say it? They say anything they want to about us.

[alcuno]

3. "Say one thing, do the opposite."

Won't touch SS
Work with our allies
Create 5 million new jobs

And on and on it goes.

[Sparkly]

4. That is KEY

You're right, there's a long list of examples!

[zulchzulu]

6. An idea for the tagline

The tagline of the ads would have to be hard-hitting and say the obvious. Leaving it up to the viewer to connect the dots is not giving the full punch that Kerry needs, imho.

If anything, the way the ad would be delivered would be to use a different person saying each word:

Text Person

"Is" 25 year old woman
"President" Vietnam vet
"Bush" Woman in her 60's
"lying" 45 year old black man
"again?" 35 year old latina woman

Have the series intersperse with various likely voter profiles.

[Misskittycat]

11. I like it a lot!

We need to get in their faces with simple (but truthful) ads like this.

We also need to do variations of the "Harry and Louise" style ad that the Republicans did to defeat the Clinton health care plan in 1992-94. (I think I saw one of these by the Dems -- maybe moveon.org -- a few months ago, but haven't seen it since. It was something like: "Who's going to believe that?" (about things Bush has said)

[gmoney]

9. You gotta say it...people clearly don't get nuance.

Too much clutter in the media and life, so you gotta brand Bush's lies in big red letters saying "ANOTHER LIE" -- maybe have Jon Lovitz shouting it on the voice over.

It's like people who have a "Bush/Cheney: Four More Wars" sticker on their car... they might as well write a $100 check to the RNC. It's far too subtle for most people, even if they're not trying to read it with peripheral vision at 60 MPH. It looks like another pinhead for Bush.

Right wingers know this... they will NEVER put a sticker on their car that says "Kerry" in big letters, even if the next word is "sucks" or "lies" or whatever. Gotta give repubs credit for ability to spread the message effectively to the lowest common denominator.

[mzmolly]

5. I like it. Using his own words against him would be great for an ad.

:hi:

[Paradise]

7. Is pResident * lying AGAIN? I love it! n/t

[rfranklin]

8. Tag line from senior: "Gee, thanks a lot, George!"

or maybe a little less subtle, "George, you're a complete fucking asshole!"

[zulchzulu]

10. Great idea

Maybe the senior is ripping up a Bush-Cheney brochure at the same time or using Bush's face as a dartboard... :-> kidding on the dartboard.