32 Comments

1. Lola:

I agree. It’s almost spooky how the wolf pack disperses at the end. It’s gotten so that wolves are just as likely to be found in the suburbs as in the wild. And, I know people who raise sheep for a living and they’re not happy about how wolves have been reintroduced into the wild out west (not to mention those on the east coast with sheep farms). The motto amongst this community is “SSS” . . . shoot, shovel, and shutup when dealing with sheep kills.

Oct 22, 2004 - 10:38 am 2. Elaine_T:

It is effective, indeed. Reminds me of the ‘bear’ ad from one of Reagan’s campaigns that someone pointed me to a few months back. Also of one done by the sister of someone penwil & I both know, aimed at women with children which can be seen at: http://www.softervoices.org

I’ve been rather surprised, here in the SF Bay Area, to see several Bush/Cheney signs or bumperstickers as I go about my daily rounds. I don’t remember seeing nearly as many pro-republican things in previous elections.

Oct 22, 2004 - 11:02 am 3. Peter Boston:

30 seconds of Shock & Awe.

I would swear that one of those wolves closely resembles John Francois himself.

Oct 22, 2004 - 11:51 am 4. paperhat:

The power of the bear ad came from it being entirely abstract. It left the viewer to interpret the meaning. The viewer came to the conclusion on his own that the bear is like the USSR and the US should be as strong as the USSR. The viewer also came to the conclusion that Reagan is the man to make America strong. There is no mention of Reagan, and certainly no mention of his opponent.

Compared to the bear, the wolves ad sounds like a whiney attack ad. There is no mention of what Bush has done to protect us. It only talks about what Kerry did that would have weakened America.

Wolves is a very good ad, but it is no bear. The best pro-Bush ad so far is Ashley’s story. Wolves is a close second.

Oct 22, 2004 - 12:01 pm 5. pacer:

This Republican ad seems to me to be inspired! It certainly brings out the primordial “survival” response with preditor vs prey nuances and (at the same time) is quite restrained in the message. I find it very effective and not at all “overblown”. Leaving out the “pack attack” on Bambi was a good idea!

Pacer

Oct 22, 2004 - 12:04 pm 6. Fausta:

Daily Recycler has both ads so you can compare them side-by-side

Oct 22, 2004 - 12:09 pm 7. Stephen_M:

paperhat,Kerry would have hugged Ashley… but better.

Oct 22, 2004 - 12:10 pm 8. Blockhead:

This is no doubt going too far afield, but the ad puts me in mind of the poem “Wolves” by Louis Macneice, the (unjustly neglected) Irish poet. The poem was written in the 1930s and wonderfully evokes the circling menaces to happily unaware civilization that were afoot at that time.

Oct 22, 2004 - 12:17 pm 9. cestmoi:

Boy! Am I out of step here! The wolves ad doesn’t do it for me at all. For me, the bear ad was far more effective. This one has a feel of sequelitis – not original and not as well done.

Oct 22, 2004 - 12:19 pm 10. Terrye:

I rather liked the ad. It was very well done.

However, Edwards says it is bad, very bad of the mean bad Bush people to do bad things like scare the poor little American people.

bad Bush…. shame on you.

Oct 22, 2004 - 12:32 pm 11. Robert:

“Kerry would have hugged Ashley… but better.”

Stephen_M – right after he asks the U.N. for permission…

Oct 22, 2004 - 1:07 pm 12. David:

Seems like a pretty good ad. I like the way the wolves stand up and start to move around at the end. I like the fact that Bush looks engaged on the telephone, not just posing. However, I found Reagan’s bear ad more powerful. And, neither came close to Johnson’s daisy ad.

Oct 22, 2004 - 1:19 pm 13. Beldar:

The beauty of the bear ad was its use of the very old (pre-Soviet, I think) image of the bear for Russia. For the commercial to work, it presumed at least a minimal knowledge of history (or a tutor for the viewer); but assuming you got the connection, it was then very troubling, very eerie.

Maybe it’s because I’m a dog owner and prefer large, wolflike breeds, but the wolf pack strikes me as being more interesting than menacing. (I’m sure I’d have a different reaction if I were alone and wounded in snowy woods, listening to them howl and circle in on me.) I’d almost have preferred jackals for the terrorists, if you could get ‘em looking scary enough; probably couldn’t do that without some prey corpses and flesh-rending, I suppose.

OTOH — provocative commercials that reinforce the danger of the post-9/11 world without blatantly “exploiting” 9/11 itself are useful. This ad does that.

My own blunt inclinations are to tie people into their chairs, clip their eyelids up a la “A Clockwork Orange,” and make them watch movies of planes going into skyscrapers and jumpers intercut with sobbing families. But hey, that’s why I’m a blogger instead of an advertising executive, I guess.

The DNC’s “eagle/ostrich” counterad is here. On the “hopefulness” index, I think the DNC got the better of this exchange.

Oct 22, 2004 - 1:22 pm 14. PapayaSF:

The power of the bear ad came from it being entirely abstract.

Not really, paperhat. The Russian bear is a longtime national symbol, like the British bulldog or Uncle Sam.

Oct 22, 2004 - 1:25 pm 15. John Davies:

“Kerry would have hugged Ashley… but better.”

He would have let the inspectors do their job before rushing to pre-emptively hug Ashley.

(This is fun)

Oct 22, 2004 - 1:44 pm 16. Howard:

It would have been much better with Koala Bears. Then Bush could have skipped through the brush toward them and when he arrived at the little horde he could have tumbled in the grass with them and scratched their tummies til they all became his friends.

Then blown the shit out of them.

Oct 22, 2004 - 1:51 pm 17. stumbley:

I’m sorry, but Senator Kerry would not have hugged Ashley, unless she had passed the “Global Test”…but he has a plan to have Jacques Chirac hug her, more competently than W.

Oct 22, 2004 - 2:00 pm 18. Sandy P:

Well, this election will certainly be one for the books, Hawaii(!??!) is becoming a swing state, via Bros. Judd:

Often dismissed as too small, too isolated and too Democratic to worry about in presidential contests, Hawaii suddenly has a close race.

Democrats say Sen. John Kerry still has an edge over President Bush in the contest for Hawaii’s four electoral votes, but the race has become awfully tight for their comfort. With late poll closings – 11 p.m. EST on Nov. 2 – and a slow count, Hawaii politicians are talking about offering a dramatic conclusion to what could be an ultra-close national election.

Oct 22, 2004 - 2:03 pm 19. Yehudit:

The Wolves ad doesn’t do it for me because it is so blatantly manipulative. I do agree with the point it’s making, but I don’t like ads trying to scare me that blatantly. I wonder if it will backfire. I don’t think it will convince anyone who isn’t convinced.

I loved the Ashley article when I first read it. I think the ad is making a big deal out of something lovely but small.

I have the same problem with paradoxical reactions to drugs – nothing works on me the way it’s supposed to.

Oct 22, 2004 - 2:26 pm 20. Ray Ciscon:

John Kerry has a plan for hugging Ashley, a better plan than George W. Bush. We’re going to pay for it by rescinding the tax cut on the richest 2% of those Americans that got a tax cut from George Bush.

As for those wolves, I’ve got a gun. It’s a pretty big gun too. I think I shot some geese with it recently. Now that I have a hunting license, I will put together a plan to shoot those wolves. Better yet, I will play for my plan by rescinding the tax cut on the richest 2% of those Americans that got a tax cut from George Bush.

Oct 22, 2004 - 2:27 pm 21. Rick Ballard:

Yehudit,

Neither ad works for me either. I think the target is to reinforce the message with “soft” deciders as part of the GOTV drive. On the other hand the eabgle/ostrich ad doesn’t work at all. “I’ll sit and watch from afar” is probably a fair summary of the Kedwards “plan” but I don’t see it as an incentive to vote for them.

With IA,MN,MI and PA moving to the undecided column (per RCP EV map) I’d say Kedwards better do a bit more than sit and watch if they hope to break 200 in the EV count.

Oct 22, 2004 - 3:12 pm 22. Emerald Elixir:

Yeah, it truly is a great ad.

I wonder if it will be as effective as the swooping knife/cuts in Social Security radio ad the Kerry campaign is running here in FL. Are the old fogies going to be swayed by wolves or by the sound of a swooping knife cutting their Social Security if Bush is re-elected? (sigh)

Oct 22, 2004 - 3:25 pm 23. paperhat:

I just saw the eagle/ostrich ad. It’s pretty good. At first I didn’t think it was as effective as wolves, but after thinking about it a bit giving people the visual image of the ostrich as Bush will probably work for Kerry. I give the edge to Kerry for ads released today.

Oct 22, 2004 - 3:52 pm 24. mrp:

The “Wolf” ad is OK, though they could have been more ferocious. Kids today are brainwashed in their schools to love wolves. Heck, a couple of years ago, when the Washington Post decided to announce that the DC suburbs were overrun with deer, town councils were entertained by crazy environmentalists suggesting that the deer populations be controlled by introducing wolf packs. Personally, I’m rather intrigued by the thought of K Street bandits being chased to their Lexi by vulpine predators prowling Montgomery County. But that’s just me.

On an even happier note, Slate has a great piece written by Richard Rushfield. Titled “Political Poseur: Pretending to be a Republican in Blue California”, Mr. Rushfields describes his adventures in Orange County and LA while wearing a Bush-Cheney 2004 T-shirt and buttons.

Excerpt:

Dressed to impress in my Bush-Cheney T-shirt, tote bag, and “W.” button, I first stop at Silverlake’s ÔøΩber-cafe, the Coffee Table. “The Table,” as it is known, is the daytime HQ for the area’s writing communityÔøΩthe bed-headed brigades of aspiring indie auteurs who hunch over their laptops, whispering pitches back and forth like state secrets. I stand in line for a soda; my T-shirt first makes contact with the locals as the server, a rather prim-looking Asian-American man, double-takes at my unabashedly partisan display, his smile freezing into a look I can only describe as bracing for me to pull out an assault weapon and open fire. I order, pay, and walk with my Diet Coke through the restaurant, taking a seat on the patio that puts me and my garb on prominent display for the 20 or so patrons. A wave of distressed glances ripples in my direction, but I remain unmolested. Yet as I finish my soda, two hipsters saunter past. One of them, untucked shirt hanging over his jeans, gapes at my shirt and mutters, “Asshole,” only slightly under his breath.

Next up: CafÔøΩ Tropical, the gritty Cuban coffee house in old Silverlake. I park my Bush-Cheney festooned car behind a Volvo station wagon decorated with a bumper sticker that reads, “Ban war without end. Not in our name.” I order an iced espresso and sit beneath a collage of Che Guevara photos. Customers accessorize their coffees at the condiment station in front of me. Suddenly I look up to see Latino man, who appears to be in his early 40s, rushing toward me …

Oct 22, 2004 - 4:56 pm 25. Terrye:

mrp:

There is a reason that he rest of America makes smart ass comments about California falling in to the ocean.

Sorry Roger and all other Californians with the sense God gave lettuce.

Oct 22, 2004 - 5:15 pm 26. Sarah Brabazon-Biggar:

I agree with Paperhat. The wolf ad’s imagery is outstanding, but the voice-over sounds like the standard political ad false dichotomy. Eg: “My opponent voted to reduce Medicare spending. Should you support someone who hates the elderly?”

I strongly believe that Kerry would weaken America, but I don’t think this ad illustrates it very well.

(I would have liked it better if it had just shown the wolves running through the shadows menacingly, with no voice over, for 20 seconds, and then cut to stark white letters on a black background: “Remain vigilant. Keep America safe.” Cut to the Bush/Cheney logo.)

The bear ad, on the other hand, is absolutely superb. I’d never seen it before (I was but a wee bairn during the Reagan administration) but it carries an impact even today. Will the wolf ad remain as fresh 20 years from now? I doubt it.

Oct 22, 2004 - 5:22 pm 27. mark percich:

Not even close. The “Bear” ad is a second deck homerun. Wolves is an in the gap triple. Ashley is the best ad of the campaign season by far.

Oct 22, 2004 - 5:55 pm 28. kellymo:

“Kerry would have hugged Ashley… but better.”

Oh, come on now. We all know Kerry would have shaken Ashley’s hand awkwardly, and then called Arafat about another sleepover in the Lincoln Bedroom.

Oct 22, 2004 - 9:15 pm 29. richard mcenroe:

Kerry tried to hug Ashley, but some sonofabitch knocked him down…

Oct 22, 2004 - 9:25 pm 30. labar:

Kerry was gonna hug her before he wasn’t.

He wouldn’t have rushed to hug her before building a building a real coalition that includes our traditional allies. That way he wouldn’t have to bear the burden of supplying 95% of the hug, and wouldn’t have to pay 99% of the cost of the hug.

He would’ve done all of the hug completely different if he was president.

And when he’s president, he’ll be completely accountable for the hug. (unlike how accountable he is about answering the Swift Boat Vets charges).

Oct 23, 2004 - 3:22 am 31. bruce:

What about the claims the ad is making?

Factcheck.org (endorsed by Cheney himself) hasn’t commented on the wolf ad itself, but has dealt with the charges against Kerry on intelligence and defense spending:

here

and

here

and

here

Oct 23, 2004 - 6:35 am 32. pixpixpix:

does someone know exactly what bill Kerry supported that the ad refers to?

Oct 23, 2004 - 6:35 pm

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