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January 9, 2004
Little Pink Houses
Joe Conason reports in Salon.com on a new anti-Howard Dean ad playing in Iowa. The advertisement is sponsored by the conservative Club for Growth and accuses Dean of seeking to raise taxes on the average American family by $1900 a year (a misleading assertion in the first place).
However, the advertisement's other "message" is a bit more disturbing. Set in a "typical" American barbershop, somewhere in John Cougar Mellencamp's middle America we get the following image:
"I think Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading," barks a man leaving a barbershop; a woman with him completes the sentence: "... body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont where it belongs."Conason expresses dismay at the ad's attempt to associate Howard Dean with cultural elitism and points out (rightfully) that the people who financed the ad aren't your "average Joes and Janes." What I find more insulting is that there seems to be an implied bias against the very middle Americans the advertisement seems to target. I've spent a little time (several years, in fact) in the midwest, and they (gasp) have sushi restaurants, espresso bars, and even Volvo dealerships. They even have movie theaters where popular Hollywood films sell out on a regular basis. Yeah, the advertisement's sponsors (who also dig Hollywood films and get their clothes tailored at fancy boutiques) are being hypocritical, but I think they're being just a tad condescending as well.
Posted by chuck at January 9, 2004 1:53 AM
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Comments
You're a jack ass
dot com
p.s.
my volvo holds more clansman than any other american car can.
fruitcake
Posted by: rooster at March 13, 2004 4:06 AM