This election season has definitely had its fair share of odd and unusual campaign advertisements.
As we noted earlier this semester, there was the overtly racist ad from a senate race in Michigan, in which an Asian girl is wearing yellow, riding a bicycle through a rice paddy and saying, in a thick Chinese accent, that China will overtake the U.S. economy.
There was also an incredibly strange ad from former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, in which his creepy campaign manager is smoking and talking about how good his candidate is.
But a new ad from Herman Cain’s political organization takes the cake for odd and just plain weird.
The ad basically argues that our tax code kills small businesses. Sounds like a standard Republican ad, right?
However, it is the way the ad illustrates this argument that is downright creepy.
The ad begins with a girl holding a large rabbit, saying that the bunny represents small business.
She then places the bunny in a nest of straw next to a piece of wood.
The girl then says, “This is small business under the current tax code.” Immediately after this, we find that the straw nest is actually a catapult, and the rabbit is launched into the air.
As the rabbit is flying through the air, we see a man holding a gun. The man shoots the rabbit, which explodes almost instantaneously.
Don’t worry, PETA — the rabbit that exploded was a computer graphic.
It’s actually quite surprising that PETA hasn’t come out saying that this ad encourages harm against animals.
The animal rights group is probably preparing to throw red paint on Cain as we speak.
While the ad clearly demonstrates its message by literally killing a representation of small business, did it really have to take it to such bizarre extremes?
Was this really the most effective way to illustrate this point?
One would think that an organization with the funding of a figure like Cain could afford to find actual cases in which the tax code contributed to the closing of a small business.
Instead, Cain’s organization decided to make an incredibly disturbing, graphic Web ad that probably does nothing to convince anyone of its position.
Rather than encouraging debate about tax reform, the only thing people are saying about this video is how strange it is.
Let this be a lesson in political advertising.
There are ways to draw people’s attention to an issue without going for the shock factor, as this ad clearly does.
It will be interesting to see what other strange ads come out as we get closer to Election Day in November.
