The latest Gary Johnson youtube ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF367w4nI1E&list=PL7BE34898EFC5C04E&index=73
The blurb accompanying the ad:
The Federal Reserve has destroyed the buying power of the U.S. dollar and weakened our economic position in the world. It’s time to audit the Fed, kick out the bad actors, reform and restore the strength of our currency. Gary Johnson gets it. He’ll end the Fed’s funny money scam. Help him. Gary Johnson for President 2012
In other Johnson news:
Johnson has raised a dollar for every foot of Mt. Everest, which he climbed 9 years ago today with a broken leg, and is trying to raise an equal amount of money by Monday “to get him back down off the summit.”
We Made the Summit, but the challenge isn’t over! Thanks to more than 200 great supporters, we not only reached our goal of raising a dollar for every foot Gov. Johnson climbed to reach the top of Mt. Everest nine years ago today, but we exceeded it. Thank You!
But reaching the summit is only half the challenge. Just as Gov. Johnson had to make his way back down Mt. Everest, we are continuing our challenge with a goal of raising another $29,035 by Monday, June 4.
Go to www.garyjohnson2012.com and make sure we get there!
@11 Gene
As Paulie said, yes, a ton. If only we would make our generic message neutral as opposed to conservative, we would see a flood.
I came from the left and most of my outreach has been left. I have had several people from my Occupy SLC outreach tell me they are voting for Johnson.
35 l, frankly, I don’t see much of an “anti-war crowd,” either, in a single issue nowadays. 8 years ago, yes, a small one. This is not to say that his fp message has no support, he does, but that his issues need to hit a few hotbuttons to gain significant (by L standards) support.
I don’t think the “fair” tax is necessarily right wing, however. Mike Gravel was (and is, as far as I know) for it, for example.
So far as I can tell, Gravel isn’t really “for” any specific proposals, beyond his fanatical devotion to direct democracy, i.e. tyranny of the majority.
RC,
I don’t have any statistical “evidence”, if that’s what you mean, but the Fair Tax has been kicked around by right-wing politicians and pundits for several years, and has never gained any real traction. I have heard decent numbers of young people chanting “End the Fed! End the Fed!’, but I’ve never heard anyone chanting “Fair Tax! Fair Tax!” (although I suspect Neil Boortz may do so just prior to achieving an orgasm).
To look at it in another way, Johnson is trying to appeal to, among others, the antiwar crowd. Are most of the people in that group more likely to be strongly in favor of the Fair Tax, or strongly opposed to the Fed? My bet is on the latter. This is particularly true of the RP crowd, who may be on the fence about GJ, due to his ambiguous antiwar position, and need another reason to really want to embrace him.
BTW, I agree with you that GJ should also attack the bank bailouts, as it would greatly help him with a lot of people, and is unlikely to really hurt him, unless he’s shooting for the “Wall Street fat cat” demographic.
RC @33
A spot about the bailouts would be good as well.
32 p, yes, that tracks for me. Were I a GJ advisor, I’d probably make it about the Fed and bank bailouts, not just the Fed, as I’d say it broadens out the appeal beyond the niche.
But I’m OK with this tack, and I certainly think it makes a lot of sense to appeal rather directly to the Paulistas, hard core and the rest….
It’s niche marketing to an audience that is not mass by Obama/Rmoney standards, but much larger than existing Johnson supporters and much more available than the middle of the roaders.
30 ah, yes, clearly the Fed plays with the Paulistas, which is a fairly small subset of the electorate, near as I can tell. Even among Paul supporters, I’d suspect that only the hard-core are REALLY into the “Fed issue,” as it’s a rather obscure and complicated issue…
Is there a mass movement of size for a gold standard, or even competing currencies? I’ve not seen one, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one….
The fed is a better issue than the “fair” tax in terms of attracting active supporters. This is clearly a play to the Ron Paul crowd.
I don’t think the “fair” tax is necessarily right wing, however. Mike Gravel was (and is, as far as I know) for it, for example. The “prebate” appeals to the left and the sales tax appeals to the right.
Lew Rockwell’s blog says “another good Gary Johnson ad” with a link.
Very good! That could pay dividends.
26 l: It is (correctly) perceived by most people as a tired right-wing hobby-horse, while the Fed is seen as a timely and important topic.
me: Just asking…is there evidence for this assessment? I certainly perceive that “the Fed” has moved up the list of issues in the Public Square, but I have not seen that many have embraced it as a “major” issue vs., say, tax reform. Paulistas and a few lefty bloggers might have this as a top 5 issue, but who else does?
I agree with @23 that Johnson needs to find a new picture of himself fast. It makes him seem very out of place in all of his ads.
This is a smart move for Johnson. He should talk more about the Fed. The economy is going to be the key issue in the election, and the Fed is an issue that resonates with many more voters than the “Fair” Tax, which typically elicits yawns, at best. It is (correctly) perceived by most people as a tired right-wing hobby-horse, while the Fed is seen as a timely and important topic.
Lew Rockwell’s blog says “another good Gary Johnson ad” with a link.
Geez – I just noticed that Dr. Phillies made the same point as one of mine in the very first post. He’s right, though. I was in college in 1980 and really liked Ed Clark. I approach libertarianism from the left, which is why I am more open to Johnson than I was to Barr or than I am to Root. But intentionally offending me (and while many folks don’t know better, Gary Johnson surely does) doesn’t help attract my vote.
The music’s okay with me, but the capitalization (and the poor punctuation – learn how to use commas!) drive me crazy. I also don’t get Johnson’s picture of choice. It looks okay in the ad, but when it’s displayed on it’s own as on politics1.com or even on the LP front page he just looks weak and out of place to me. Finally, I hate it when people refer to the “Democrat” party (I think it’s the third or fourth ad in the playlist that does this.) I know that started back in the 1980’s – probably part of Atwater’s successful effort to rebrand his opponents – but it annoys me still.
As to why the Republicans are taking the contest seriously, and why Romney has challenges ahead, courtesy of Kos himself is the following tabular summary of outcomes in swing states. Goddess only knows what the computer will do to this input, but:
Polls aggregates are from Talking Points Memo
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/30/1095944/-Obama-continues-to-lead-big-in-battleground-polling
.
State Obama Romney Margin Change from 5/24
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Arizona 42.8 49 -6.2 -1.9
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Colorado 48.9 43.7 5.2 5.2
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Florida 44.6 45.5 -0.9 0.3
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Iowa 50.7 41.7 9.0 0.0
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Michigan 49.2 40 9.2 6.4
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Missouri 43.8 48.6 -4.8 0.2
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New Hampshire 52.1 42 10.1 0.0
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New Mexico 54.2 39.3 14.9 0.9
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Nevada 51.8 43.2 8.6 1.0
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North Carolina 44.8 47.4 -2.6 0.1
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Ohio 48 42 6.0 2.7
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Pennsylvania 48.6 41.4 7.2 -1.4
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Virginia 49.5 43.5 6.0 -2.8
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Wisconsin 50.8 41.1 9.7 7.8
20 js, OK, but maybe you and I watch different stuff, as advertising does this sort of thing all the time.
I’m guessing you find ee cummings to be a Neanderthal, too.
@18
It lacks refinement, therefore it is coarse.
It is indicative of a certain illiteracy.
It blurs the distinction between which concepts are unique, significant, or important.
It reads almost like a check-cashing sign in the ghetto… or an Internet crank’s message-board rant.
Hope this helps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCeajPAWMqQ
This would be some good background music too
The capitalization in this ad works for me. It’s a question of art direction, not grammar and punctuation “rules.”
How the capitalization scheme for this ad “coarsens” anything is beyond me.
A headline masquerading as a book title is a bad enough sign of a coarsening society, but an entire paragraph capitalized as such is just madness.
In that case – I don’t know, but maybe someone who does will let us know.
Great add. GJ continues to impress and target the right people…unlike BB in 08.
Yes.
Case in point #1 – Ed Clark campaigned as a “low tax liberal,” got a lot of youth support in part by making a lot of college appearances, and did better than any LP presidential candidate before or since.
Case in point #2 – College OPHs/WSPQ show a preponderance of left-center-libertarians; Students for Liberty speaker at the latest LP convention reports that (non-party) young libertarians are now coming from the left as much as from the right.
Case in point #3 – Ron Paul, despite some social conservative views, has done well with young people coming from the left.
Case in point #4 – Anecdotally: I was a progressive Democrat before I was a Libertarian and have met any number of others. I’ve also met some people who explored or joined the LP and left because of what they perceived as a right-tilted internal culture and/or right-tilted message framing.
Case in point #5 – Johnson’s polls show that people who call themselves “very liberal” are more apt to support Johnson right now than those calling themselves somewhat liberal, somewhat conservative or very conservative.
Case in point #6 – numerous past polls show liberals and Democrats just as or even more likely to support LP candidates as conservatives/Republicans are.
@11 The LP has done so little actual outreach that we cannot claim very much about which groups may be reachable.
If a tree fell in a forest far from civilization would it make a sound ?
Yes. The LP would be ther holding a committee meeting, reaching out to no one, arguing about whether the message was too radical or not and whether to reach out to voters in the L quadrant who lean a bit left or to those who lean a bit right.
So, the tree would make a sound because the LP would hear it.
But, no one ever hears the LP.
We never advertise.
How can we?
We never plan to.
I’m OK with this message. It’s Paulista outreach. (Personally, Fed-bashing ain’t my thing, though.)
Hasn’t GJ been published a couple, three times in HuffPost? If anything, so far his appeals seem slanted left more than right.
Music is highly subjective, but I remain OK with this theme.
Do we have any evidence that outreach to progressive Democrats has ever worked?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RukUetw0hAM
Just a suggestion to the Johnson campaign – change the music.
Would be a good start
By request of the site’s editor, who said most recently that the correct format should be to capitalize all the important words in headlines. My previous practice was to treat the headline more like a sentence, capitalizing only the first word, but without a period at the end.
Well, you are right and the site’s editor is wrong, but the question was about the YouTube “ad,” not this website.
By request of the site’s editor, who said most recently that the correct format should be to capitalize all the important words in headlines. My previous practice was to treat the headline more like a sentence, capitalizing only the first word, but without a period at the end.
Dr. Phillies is a Libertarian, not a Democrat, and he is correct that it is the Democratic Party, not the Democrat Party.
Why is every word capitalized? Talk about amateur hour….
(PS. It’s always a joy to see Mr. Phillies defending his Democrat party.)
Watch the previous ad and you’ll see what I mean.
I’ll take your word for it; I didn’t see any sign of a break.
George
This ad, or the last one (Peace is Cheaper/Thelma and Louise)? It starts in on the next ad after this one ends. I think the part you are talking about is from the previous ad.
You can tell that the ad was written by Republicans. There is an ‘oops’ that really offends progressive members of the DemocratiIC Party, people to whom we can reach out.