Thursday, Dec. 09, 2010

Jerry Brown, "Echo"

Politician-speak is often a numbing string of familiar platitudes, vague exhortations to change government and do right by the American People. Jerry Brown's ad, which put statements from his Republican rival for governor, Meg Whitman, side by side with nearly identical sound bites of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, could probably have been made with any two politicians. But Brown's is a veritable masterpiece of the genre. Simultaneously throwing the dead weight of Schwarzenegger's abysmal approval ratings around Whitman's neck and marring the political neophyte with the mark of the incumbent, the 40-year career politician turned the tables on his well-funded foe. The core message of the ad, produced by veteran strategist Joe Trippi, comes through in the very first line, as the two Republicans echo, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."