Mitch Daniels, the Republican candidate for governor has a new TV spot out, which you can view at this link.
I was going to vote for Mitch anyway because he’s been good for the state of Indiana and Indiana gun owners, never mind what ads he runs on television. But I actually really liked that ad, and normally I hate all political commercials.
Honestly, that music was so damn heroic, I expected Mitch to come swinging in on a rope, dagger clutched between his teeth and punch the economy IN THE FACE for misbehaving. Perhaps my enjoyment of the commercial was based primarily on the hilarious mental image that I had with it.
Really though, I’m a sucker for music, and the music in a campaign commercial can have a strong affect on my reaction to the advertisement. In this case the Mitch Daniels campaign absolutely nailed the music on this one. I’m sure that the resemblance to the music from Pirates of the Caribbean was not a coincidence, as the mental image conjures heroics and drama, which is precisely what the campaign was going for.
This does illustrate something that I’ve talked about before when it comes to campaigning, and that’s the importance of simplicity and music. All that commercial does is put up a bunch of stats about how awesome Mitch has been while playing rousing music in the background. Because it’s very simple and stimulating, it has a lot of broad appeal, moreso than an ad where the candidate wanders around talking to people.
Never underestimate the power of awesome music.
Politicians (or their election staff) should at least try to make their commercials funny as well.
It’s a good thing for Mitch that he pushed DST through really early in this term. He really pissed-off a lot of his supporters with that. He does done a good job since then to make up for it.
Not being from Indiana originally, I never understood why people were so pissed off with DST.
Seriously, what’s the big deal?
The big deal? A lot of small things that add up. Probably the biggest problem with DST is that the line between the Eastern TZ and Central would about naturally run almost straight down the middle of the state, through the middle of Indy. So which should we be in? If we’re in the Central TZ then the sun goes down absurdly early in the winter. If we’re in the Eastern TZ AND do DST, the sun goes down absurdly late in the middle of summer. But Eastern time and no DST worked nicely. Sunset was reasonable throughout the year. Agriculture is really important in Indiana and DST is no help to farming. DST pushes back sunrise by an hour. For farmers and other people whose livelihood is made out doors, you end up starting your day by the clock, but ending your day by the sun. I work in an office and *I* end up doing that. Because my work hours are flexible, I’ve been practically keeping non-DST hours (get to work at 9, leave after 6 instead of 8-5). As a programmer, DST sucks. Coding date/time handling stuff in general is a PITA with out the extra complication that DST adds. Then there’s the intellectual issue that DST is a just mind-game – let’s all pretend that we’re not getting up an hour earlier! And I’ll admit a lot of us kinda’ liked the fact that we were different from the rest of the country in not observing DST.
Fair enough – I’ve got to say though, I love how late the sun goes down in the summer here.
Yeah, I don’t hate it quite as bad as I thought I would, but if I could end it, I still would. It’s still a PITA and the whole argument of “people in other states have no idea what time it is here” is bull.