Surprise: Two Members of "Halftime In America" Ad Team Previously Created Pro-Obama Art

As Adam Carolla would say, "My head is spinning."

The people did Obama "art" on their own dime and own time--

Aaron Allen, for example, created a striking poster, called "Unite the States of America," on candidate Obama’s behalf. The poster shows an Obama silhouette bringing together red and blue spheres meant to represent America’s partisan division. His official bio notes that he “also works on personal art projects, including a poster for the 2008 Obama campaign that was shown in several galleries and publications.”

The ad’s art director, Jimm Lasser, created an entire art exhibit in New York around Nike-style shoes bearing Obama’s image. Another of the creative directors, Michael Tabtabai has used his Twitter account recently to send out the message “Obama x Incredible Hulk. America STRONG!” and linking to an image of an action doll of the president looking like the comic book super hero.

Anyone shocked that dudes working in advertising are super-pro-Obama?

Maybe I'm dumb, but it was only when I read this article and read "It's Halftime in America" again did I really comprehend how pro-Obama this ad is.

Halftime implies half-done, right? If the first four years were the first half, then the next four years are the second half.

This is virtually explicit. (Virtually.) The ad is very nearly expressly calling for a second term for Obama -- the second half -- so he can wrap up his game.

It also completely discounts the first "half's" score, doesn't it? Obama' first "half" stats are abysmal. But if you buy into the metaphor of a presidential term as one-half of an incomplete game, you start to buy into ideas like "fourth quarter comebacks," "Halftime adjustments," and ideas like "we didn't get much traction with our running game but we've tired out the defense and will start benefiting from our first half work in the second half."

I didn't get this. Maybe I'm dumb. (Also, I didn't see the ad at the time.) But it's just now that I realize how nearly explicit the ad is in endorsing staying with Obama for the second half, because, you know, the game isn't decided by the score at the end of the first half, is it? Whole 'nuther half to play, and you can only see if you've won based on the score after that half.

If it were overt, people would tend to reject the message. People don't like attempts at persuasion.

But because it's covert, the basic meme -- "can't judge the outcome of a game based on first half stats" -- has a much better chance of getting suck in people's heads.

Pretty insidious.

posted by Ace at 03:27 PM

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