Obama ad fails to lift up Suderman

I always felt he is trying to impress the Che Guevara T-shirt wearing crowd. He is running as the establishment "anti-establishment" candidate. The youth fails to see through the cheap slogans and that is the way it has always been.

I know this isn't your main point (or Peter's), but I get tired of hearing modern worship music described as "megachurch-friendly Christian pop, sugar-coated and sanitized, as bland as a t-shirt from the Gap," etc. It's not pseudo-inspiration to me. I used to look down on it, but after going through personal difficulties (and meeting with a mega-church that helped me through them) I received tremendous spiritual benefit from some contemporary worship songs. The old hymns I used to listen to had more "truth," but very little genuine inspiration.
Here's a couple of video examples. I know the main point of this post is Obama, but it's relevant because sometimes what seems shallow to one person can be full of profound meaning to another, not just on an emotional level but on a rational one (and even a spiritual one).
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf44cMNfTkM
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh0TC6Er92o

Not bland, but very beautiful.

Why not think about how fun it will be for Obama and his baby-momma, who you looking at, gangsta rap, waaahhhzzz up, saggy-pants mob of angry lemmings and sexually degenerate bobble heads, to be introduced into reality, then when they are walking the halls of the White House, and seeing that the Americans that have brought them their safe and secure world, were almost exclusively White Christian men.

Reality is reality. For example, Obama will actually be more hated by Jihadist Muslims then Bush was. He will be seen is an apostate to Islam, will be seen as an American (no, no, seriously he will), and his worthless rhetoric will expose his valueless politics for what they are, even to misguided Mohammadens.

We can survive the unthinkable if Obama and Clinton were to rule America. One thing our youth knows a lot about is Bull---t and bad role models. Once disappointed by these two politicians, they will look around their same old neighborhoods and realize that they are the same old neighborhoods. Obama has already proved that, but lemmings rarely look up from their lot in life (and death).

Change? What a cruel hoax Obama and Clinton are playing on their ignorant and myopically educated followers.

I can't think of a better group of people that deserve it.

We who do not follow the people following them, can survive one-thousand, four-hundred and sixty-one days of either one of them.

Who do you think got through the sub-prime mortgage crisis?

There will always be a seperation of the wheat from the chaff. Just remember to not follow the Democrats onto the chaff pile.

It appears that Suderman is missing an essential point about the Yes We Can video... It was not produced or paid for by the Obama campaign. Will.I.Am., singer for the Black Eyed Peas, was inspired by the speech and put this together in a very short time with help from other celebrities who are supporters of Obama. So, folks can criticize Will.I.Am for the quality of his work, but to criticize the Obama campaign for the work of those inspired to show their support is pretty far off base. What I find remarkable is the rapidly growing influence of viral videos on the political game. Between this and the Obama Girl videos, it seems to be strong evidence for the groundswell of support for Obama and the enthusiasm behind his candidacy.

So, Suderman can complain that this is mushy, bland, psuedo-inspiration. Fine, that's what Obama inspired in a certain musician and Suderman can avoid buying Black Eyed Peas music. But it certainly is not hurting Obama's campaign in any way. The YouTube/MySpace/Facebook generation is the youth vote of today and Obama is the beneficiary of their eager support.

Yes, Obama's campaign has embraced the video, but if millions of people were watching a video supporting you and sharing it with millions more, you would too. I think it's pretty strong evidence that this is effective. Plus, it didn't cost Obama a dime!

Watch out Hillary....

Can anyone cite even one example of a political ad that isn't shallow?

It seems to this Sargent-Shultz-when-it-comes-to-politics (i.e., "I know nothing") that Hillary may be walking a tightrope. If she attacks Barack for having rhetoric and flourish and style with no substance, and he gets the nomination, it will come back to bite the Dems in the butt at the election (assuming McCain has substance). If she attacks him too much, and she gets the nomination by tooth, nail, claw, and backroom politics, she threatens to alienate the Black vote from the Dems (maybe), and she could then lose.

Oh, what fun to see Bill and Hill flapping in the wind like a kite's tail.

Of course, this could all change in short order. Nothing has been predictable about this contest.

I think the ad was stupid, and I suspect that if you asked Obama privately, he'd admit feeling the same way.

But like it or not, we live in the Age of Oprah, and emotional appeals sway more votes than policy statements.

Re: anon evang post of the two old Reagan ads.

The first Reagan ad at least was a listing of his accomplishments over the past four years (although whether a President can actually claim that he controlled the economy is certainly questionable). So in that ad you got some emotion rolled in with an argument. Obama's is just wishful thinking with no substance. Regarding the bear ad, it at least made you stop and think. "Think" being the operative term.

But emotion will always be with us. Emotion is a necessary element in making decisions. I once read of a man who had brain surgery for some malady and the side effect of the operation was that his emotional center was pretty much reduced to a straight line. His life fell apart because he could not make decisions. If given a list of restaurants for example he could not choose which one he wanted to go to. We just can't do without emotion.

Rob, actually, I'm like that too. I can't make simple decisions about where to meet someone for lunch, and always agonize unnecessarily about what's the best place. I hope that doesn't mean I'm living with the equivalent of the consequences of a lobotomy.

Seems you can't please some people.

If there were NO ads like this (regardless of origin), then the candidate gets the cold, stiff, talking head characterization.

Appeal to emotion, its treacly and lacking content. List your positions and, well, its too long for tv anyway, but then you get panned for being a wonk.

thanks anon evang. I can't look at them now, will try later.

I'm with Connie on that post by Donny - at a minimum, very rude.

Karen's right too that a candidate is either going to be criticized for being too emotional or too wonkinsh.

The comparison to Reagan is a good one. Obama could do for liberals what Reagan did for conservatives. Much of Reagan's appeal was a mere attitude adjustment. At the time I was scornful of it as being mere vapid sentimentality, but now I think the adjustment was real. The attitude adjustment Obama is calling for could be just as real.

Reagan was the most ideologically well-defined candidates in American history -- a man whose ideas were so considered so extreme the Democrats were salivating at the prospect of running against him in 1980. For years after leaving the Governor's office in 1975, he produced a daily national radio commentary on issues of the day.

Love him or hate him, Ronald Reagan brought clearly defined policies to his campaign and was all substance.

The Obama phenomenon is all about emotional impressions. It isn't going to change the way government works or the way Americans think about themselves .... because it's all just hot air. Joe Biden had him pegged exactly right.

Thanks anon evang for those wonderful videos. They were anything but "happy clappy", but rather deeply inspiring and very powerful. There ARE wonderful things being done out there with contemporary Christian music. You just have to separate the wonderful from the trite.

"what seems shallow to one person can be full of profound meaning to another, not just on an emotional level but on a rational one (and even a spiritual one)."

That's a very good point, anon evang. In a similar vein, I recall reading that one of the St. Theresas dearly loved the schlockiest of religious "art".

"Reagan was the most ideologically well-defined candidates in American history."

Simon: I don't contest that point. I doubt however, that it had much to do with why he was so ardently loved. That, I think, was just as shallow in 1979 as poeple's love of Obama now.