The Living Room Candidate Ads

I was assigned to watch the republican ads for the 2012 election, which included Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. In every sing one of these ads, Romney attacked Obama for something. No matter what Romney’s campaign comercial was discussing, it always attacked Obama for something. I think this aspect is clearly demonstrate in this commercial, which is why I chose it to be my favorite.

Romney opens up with, “did you see what president Obama said today?” which almost sounds like a form of ‘gossiping.’ He then describes what Obama said and emphasizes it in his voice by repeating himself. What was interesting to me was that when the comercial showed the clip of of Obama speaking, what he said was “voting is the best revenge.” We were given absolutely no context, yet Romney took Obamas words and slightly twisted them in front of the public. To me, I kind of laughed at this commercial, because it just seems like either side is saying, “they’re bad because they did this… but me, I would never!” In a sense I feel like Romney’s whole campaign was just beating Obama down instead of discussing why he would be a good president, or how he would benefit our country.

4 thoughts on “The Living Room Candidate Ads

  1. Theresia Keppel

    While we could not vote in this election I do remember many of Romney’s ads just being attack ads and very few that were promoting himself and explaining why he would be good. It would be interesting to compare these ads to ones that he may have run during the 2016 primary to see if his approach changed at all. Or perhaps if he runs again that would provide another interesting comparison to see if he has learned from his mistakes.

  2. Hayley Simms

    I think it says a lot that Romney’s campaign was more about bringing down Obama’s campaign rather than building up his own; it comes off as very defensive almost like he’s scared that if he doesn’t consistently attack Obama then people won’t like him. I think he does this because he knows his audience is typically very anti-Obama, so instigating rhetoric against him will rally them towards his side.

  3. Judith Witke Mele

    I love that you said you felt like his campaign was just beating down Obamas, I find that funny too. I also find your post interesting because I was trying to decide if one party had a greater rate of attack ads than the other but so far your post, and others, have shown that not to be the case.

  4. Michael Childress

    i talked about this a little bit in my blog post, but I really hate when candidates attack other candidates. Yes, i understand that it is a competition, and it helps one candidate for the other candidate to be put down, but in my mind when I see a candidate only putting the other ones down it makes them seem less confident to me.

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