Russ Potts' new ad consists of...people banging pots (and grill lids) and screaming "WE WANT POTTS". With this blog post, I am an inadvertent player in the Potts strategy--the more this ad gets talked about, the more pots get banged, the more Potts gets mentioned (or banged, depends on how the reviews went.). With Potts' name recognition at 49%, it can only help.
Alas, political discourse bangs to rancorous pot-banging, but I still can't get the image of the grill-whacking man out of my head. Perhaps it's time to grow up.
The spot begins with a man and a mouthful of unidentified yellow substance he is eating straight out of the pot (I wonder if Erskine Bowles, who ran in 2004 for Senate in North Carolina, would have done better with an ad featuring psychotic people banging...never mind.) He begins beating the pot with the fork, chanting, and slowly becoming more frenzied.
It moves onto a thoroughly beserk woman banging multiple pots, while a girl looks on in the background, perhaps forever discouraged from running for office.
Then Grill Man comes up. Grill Man is hereby declared the emblem of the Potts campaign, spinning about in what appears to be a religious rain dance of some sort, posessed by the devil and repeatedly banging his grill cover, which of course is not a pot.
The obligatory cute kid follows, which then brings us to an angry businessman in his car honking his horn to the incantation of We Want Potts, which moves into a chorus of African-Americans in their Sunday best, and then to two women, and then an entire classroom of children.
We are now moving into about the 38th second, when Russ Potts himself takes the stage to an enthusiastic audience of...pot-bangers. Your attention grabbed, or sanity stolen by the pot-bangers, you now listen to a few words from Russ Himself. A faint whistle can be detected through Russ's teeth as he sounds angrier than ever. Fade to "Russ Potts, Governor" image.
Fade to black. Bang head repeatedly to shake out pot-bangers. Attempt to walk through kitchen without taking something to your pots and pans.
You have been warned. This is politics.
www.StopPotts.com
This Potts thing is Potts' doing. And it is truly astounding that he thinks this will win him any votes. He might get his families now--and that's about it.
I am not sure what the message is, but from now on if I ever hear a kid making a drum kit out of kitchen equipment I will think of Potts!
On November 8, I will vote for Tim Kaine.
Apart from the Grill Man sequence, which was hilarious, the other thing I was puzzled by is the blue cans all over the first guy's apartment -- blocking access to the microwave, one the floor by the toilet, on top of the refrigerator, etc. It looks like the guy's been on Busch bender for the last week, which is probably why he's eating mac and cheese out of a pot! And why did he walk across the room to eat the mac and cheese without his crutch?
Anyway, I'm speechless... Worst. Commercial. Ever. (But so bad it's good -- kinda like Waterworld!)
.....my alphawaves have completely flatlined.