The Awesome New Santorum Attack Ad: Obamaville

Maybe It Should it be Plan Nine From Uranus?

This is Obamaville: what is apparently the beginning of an 8-part horror-show mini-series about a town in the nightmare world where Obama is reelected. It isn't kidding--there's a tip of a tongue in it's cheek--but it's serious about trying to be scary.

Deadly serious. Let's take a look!

The Ad

Obamaville is 1:05 seconds long--enough time to fill a commercial air slot but not the go-anywhere 30-second gold-standard. Here is the text:

“Imagine a small American town two years from now, if Obama is reelected. Small business are struggling and families are worried about their jobs and their future The wait to see a doctor is ever increasing. Gas prices, through the roof. The freedom of religion, under attack. And every day, the residents of this town must come to grips with reality that a rogue nation and sworn American enemy has become a nuclear threat. Welcome to a place where one president’s failed policies really hit home. Welcome to Obamaville: more than a town, a cautionary tale. Coming soon to RickSantorum.com.”

The announcer voice is male and measured. There are faint horror-show overtures but, again, it plays it straight--not over the top.

The opening takes us to a ghost town--maybe almost literally. Crows take wing against a flat-gray sky. The streets are deserted--the shops shuttered. Or maybe Ravens--the briefly seen hotel in Obamaville is The Raven's Loft. I thought that sounded familiar. Some quick flash images ("Two years from now"): someone has spray-painted 2014 on a wall. In red.

A children's merry-go-round playground toy spins in the wind. We see swings also swaying and a single shoe in the foreground. This brings us to our first fast-cut image sequence.

At 13 seconds in (many of these images exist for less than 1 second) we see this:

I called it "fog."
It cuts to a super-fast image of this:

I called it EYE. I mean, I thought about "Nose." But I went with "Eye."

Then this. I called it "family":

They look wholesome enough (WAIT--are those the girls from The Shining?). Where's dad? I think he's coming:

And finally? For several moments longer--these are all well less than a second:

Red Baby. In a crib? Or is that ... erm ... a coffin? Okay, clearly it's a crib. Kinda.

Then we're in The Matrix. We hear that small businesses are struggling. We see green tinged streets. A grim looking young family, bathed in green light in their kitchen. He's even wearing green. We hear they are worried about their jobs ... and their futures. We see a girl sitting alone with a grim picture.

We get a close up of that picture. For no good reason. Other than that it is creepy. And Grim. We're told the wait to see a doctor is increasing. The camera looks in here:

There's no doctor in the room--but we have a hall ... to nowhere good:

A somewhat jagged cut back and forth does give us the doctor:

Maybe. Could be a Cenobite. Or someone developing old-style film in a dark room--but you get only fractions of a second to see the doctor--hey--just like under ObamaCare--I get it! We hear gas prices are through the roof. In yellow we see a gas pump tick off over 90.00. An image has a man holding a gas-pump to his head--suicide by petrol?

Against a black background we see a candle flame. It goes out.

The film brings us home to an older woman sitting in front of a TV. On it she is watching images of Iran as the narrator tells us an enemy rogue nation--a sworn American enemy--is getting a nuclear weapon.

On the screen Amadenijad's face morphs--for a moment--to Obama's. It's not even clear where all these TV's are, anyway" one is on the floor, plugged into a wall. They're too poor to afford a TV stand? But some of the others?

I think it's Videodrome?

We see a woman watching the screens. A close up of an eye. A legion of Agent Smiths going to kick Neo's ass. Wait, what?

Tell me I'm wrong. I dare you.

Here we get to our last montage. There's some moderately "long shots" (which, for this video) mean a second or a second and a half of the capitol, Obama, a guy looking out of a SUV window ... stuff like that. Then the quick cuts.

In the quick cuts are:

A breaking piggy bank falling to the floor.

Men toasting each other--probably a pricey washington dinner?

Obama against a red background with a red filter.

I'm-a-dinner-jacket giving a press conference during War of the Worlds or something.

A meat grinder. Up close.

What the heck!?

A smoke-filled room. Power-brokers making decisions for you.

A man reading a termination notice. He's been fired. The notice is done in Lorem Ipsum. The guy got fired from a type-setting factory.

And then we go the end (for now) of a car driving down a road ... to Obamaville ...

What Does It Mean?
Remember this? From 2008:

When a crowd member said at a town meeting in Lake­ville, Minn., on Friday that he feared what would happen if Obama were elected, McCain said that Obama is “a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.” 

The crowd booed. 

Why wouldn’t it? McCain says there is nothing to fear from Obama, while McCain’s running mate says Obama pals around with terrorists who target America.

It's an attack on Obama, right? I mean, he's the target, yeah?

Wrong.

When Rick Santorum goes to sleep at night, if he's not thinking about his Google problem, he's thinking about Mitt Romney. When he wakes up in the morning, he's not wondering what he'll get for breakfast--he's thinking about beating Mitt Romney. Make no mistake: this is about Romney.

I think there are a few factors at play here--before I get to the meanings of these images.

• Santorum wants to show the base--not just his base--that he will attack Obama in ways that McCain would not and, people fear, Romney will not. The ad is made to be hard-hitting and controversial. He intentionally crosses the morphing-line.

Then the first image again. My theory: This is Umbrage Bait, with the goal of bringing the Obama campaign into a discussion of how, no, it's totally unfair to compare him to Iran's quasi-elected president. An easy Santorum campaign riposte would be that the ad doesn't compare them -- the flash-flash is meant to show how Obama let the situation go pear-shaped.

Can it backfire? There's a precedence problem; the confines of good taste have prevented previous campaigns from, say, flash-cutting between George McGovern and Ho Chi Minh, or between Wendell Wilkie and Adolf Hitler.

• He actually does want to scare you. Yes, his framing method, a B-grade horror movie, acknowledges that he's being a bit absurd--but don't think for a moment that the makers of the Paranormal Activity franchise don't know they're being a bit absurd. They still want to scare the hell out of you. So does Santorum. Specifically, he wants to scare you into thinking that if you vote for Romney, Romney will lose and give us Obama.

• He is going for the gut. There are plenty of people who suffer a visceral negative reactions to Obama (to read the comments threads on conservative blogs, anyway)--but this is trying to engender them in people who don't.  Subliminal effects do show some (mild) effectiveness in eliciting a visceral response. That's what the meat-grinder picture, for example, is doing. Team Santorum is trying to push your buttons.

The Images

Here is the meaning in the messages:

1. The Fog: Everything you value will be swept away. A wave is coming. Darkness is coming.
2. The Eye (up close): Fear--a 'wide' eye. It is an arresting image associated with shock.
3. The Family: The only positive picture in the whole onslaught. This is what you stand to lose--this is what you have to protect.
4. The Blue-Man: The missing father. He is out of a job or depressed. Separated and alone ... in the dark.
5. The Red Baby. A threat to your infants. Provoking on abortion (a place where Romney is questionable). Provoking to anyone with small children. The color red against the black stands out long enough to make it a conscious shock moment. This is the image where you realize Team Santorum is not screwing around.
6. The Green Couple and Child (and the not-shown Matrix-Green outdoors): Green is the color of sickness. Something is wrong with the world. These people are suffering. The girl is alone in squalor. 
7. The Medical Imagery. In this case the hospital is not a place of healing--but one of the Death Panels. There is no one in the exam room. To see the doctor you go down a sickness laden (green) corridor to blackness where a black-and-red doctor examines ... something. There is no patient care and no comfort. The world of ObamaCare is one where nothing good happens when you are sick--because the world itself is sick.
8. Yellow Gas and the Suicide Pump: Anxiety. Stress. Worry. You will suffer financially and it will wear you down until ... blam.
9. The TVs and the Obama Morph: Poverty and fear of the outsider. The outsider is inside. The calls are coming from inside the house! Everything is green-laced and there is decay. The crowds in Tehran show a banner which promises the destruction of Israel. The throngs echo those in Germany during Obama's 2008 campaign: foreigners applauding Barack--the consumate outsider. One dictator turns into another.
10. The big finish: the legions of men-in-black are people from Obama's government who are "here to help you." They are tax collectors, EPA regulators, and so on. 
11. The piggy bank is the debt-bomb and Obama's economic policies. 
12. The smoke-filled rooms and men toasting are the Washington Elite (perhaps of both parties) making decisions in smoke-filled-rooms and toasting themselves afterwards on your tax dollars.
13. The red group are danger signals. You will be ground up like meat. Obama is red-tinged--he is not to be trusted. The woman is, perhaps, meant to be Nancy Pelosi. In any event, she signifies the nanny state.
14. In the end, you will (or have) lost your job. There is an image of a man who has cleaned out his desk: the iconic cardboard box with a plant in it leaving an office. 

What Do I Think?
I am hesitant to think we are seeing something new--but I think we might be seeing something new--especially with the 8-part series element. The infamous Daisy ad ran once and was intended to provoke emotional shock and awe. This isn't quite as overt--but it is, again, going for the gut. It isn't a policy appeal at all--but an emotional one.

I think the big wrap up--the 8th installment--should show Mitt Romney as Commander In Chief: He ran, and won--but it's still Obamaville--'cause, hey, there's no difference!

Santorum won't have that level of guts--but just imagine it.

Rating: A