I’m pretty bummed today because for weeks now I’ve been planning a huge gathering of friends and family on October 29th to watch the new “Knight Rider,” on NBC. (Never Broadcast Crap.) But, this morning I discovered that Barack Obama bought a half hour of television time to run his “please elect me” infomercial and it is going to air during the first half of Knight Rider.
Not since 1992 have we seen a candidate attempt to use the half-hour television commercial to get their message out to the people. Of course you will remember Ross Perot’s detailed plans to cut the federal deficit, which inspired a string of successful infomercials for everything from the Ronson Food Dehydrator to KaBoom. Even though millions of people watched the Perot infomercial (hey dumbass, it’s a commercial, change the channel), only seven people voted for Ross, and consequently he did not win the election and was unable to cut the federal deficit, which is why we are in such horrible shape now.
Other folks have tried the half-hour infomercial – Lyndon LaRouche broadcast one in 1984 to warn us that Walter Mondale was a soviet spy and probably not a good guy to elect as president. (Neither LaRouche, nor the infidel Mondale won the election, though the article I stole this from does not mention who won, so I can’t relay that information.) Despite the success of LaRouche’s infomercial, one must ask, in today’s hi-tech world, do people even watch television anymore?
I did a poll in my house this morning of the people who were awake when I left, and of all the registered voters in the household, only zero have made plans to watch the Obama-mercial. When asked what she would watch on October 29th, Carrie Groce, Director of Something or Other at her company, said “Dude, I don’t even know what day of the week that is – we probably have volleyball.”
The evidence suggests an overwhelming lack of interest in this nation to spend our entertainment minutes watching political tom-foolery. I have not seen the Obama-mercial yet, but I can tell you with some confidence that it will say that Obama is a good guy and you should vote for him. At one point, it might even say that McCain is a bad guy, and you should definitely not vote for him. Also, it will talk about the “financial crisis” in our country, health care reform, etc, etc…
Jim “Jimmy-J” Jordan, a democratic strategist, admits that “It feels very old-fashioned, very 1960 or something” to have a presidential candidate air a half-hour commercial. “But the truth is,” Jimmy-J explains, ”there will be a certain universe of voters, disproportionately female, who are undecided and late checking in, who will be aggressively seeking information at that point.”
With that in mind, I’m going ahead with my October 29th party (the balloons and keg are already ordered) but instead of having friends and family over, I think I’ll invite all the disproportionate, aggressive females out there. Ladies, send me an email and I’ll shoot you the directions. We don’t have to watch the Obama-mercial, we can watch old Knight Rider episodes on You Tube, or do whatever it is aggressive, disproportionate females like to do.
(Disproportionate does mean top-heavy, right?)
