Weigel

Vote for Me or the Earth Will Explode

Rick Santorum’s “Obamaville” ad is the most popular piece of agitprop his campaign has yet produced. Nearly half a million mouses and trackpads have clicked on a short film about our coming District 12-like existence if the president gets to serve another, more flexible term. I used the ad to introduce a short slideshow of over great oh-god-the-world-is-ending commercials, but I cut out one of my favorites: This 2008 McCain ad showing how nice things would be if he won.

Instead of a dark vision of an Obama-ruined future, McCain put out a commercial about how the world would look if he got his chance up there. The most ominous part of the presentation was the voice of the narrator, Powers Booth. “Nuclear terror threat: Reduced.” That came with a video of a mushroom crowd shrinking back into the ground, as if Superman had just spun the planet. “Energy independence: Advanced.” This was illustrated by a video of windmills.

And this is the part of the commercial that now comes off as completely anachronistic and bizarre. See also: Andy Kaczynski’s restoration of Mitt Romney’s 2008 energy plan. Solar! Wind! Smart grids! Post-Solyndra, no Republican talks like that anymore.