talkpolitics | Doing it for the first time

Just 10 days before the presidential election, Obama's campaign released a video that fanned the flame of passions even more, just as the vote is looking very close. The reason is that the "Your First Time" campaign ad explains that voting is like sex, so it's very important who you're doing it with, especially at your first time.

The actress Lena Dunham (in the ad, looking considerably sexier than in real), explains that your first time shouldn't be with just anyone, you want to do it with an awesome guy who really cares about women and who understands them. She goes on to tell her story how her first man had been awesome, how it was a turning point in her life - she had been a girl before, and became a woman after. So she went to the ballots and cast her vote for Obama. Applause.

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For many, the vid is amusing and provocative, although one'd easily recall that similar sexual jabs were made by other candidates, including Reagan who, during a meeting with workers in the 70s, joked that there's nothing too bad about voting Republican - after all, he had been a Democrat too, once; first it may hurt a bit, but then it's pleasuresome for the rest of your life. Applause again.

But of course, many of the more conservative leaning folks are appalled, appalled I tell you!, from this equating of voting to the loss of virginity and "the sexualization of the voting process", OMG. Some among the hardline Republicans have already sharply condemned the approach of the Obama campaign and expressed anger that the kids are forced to watch such inappropriate stuff under the pretext of a political ad. "If voting is like sex," tweeted Ben Domenech, "you're doing one of them wrong".

And there are those in the middle, like advert expert Steve Hall who says: "Some might argue the comparison is crude and irrelevant. I'd disagree and argue a decision regarding who enters a woman's body is even more important than who enters the White House. It's actually a rather brilliant move on the part of the Obama campaign". Others among his colleagues explain that, because there's nothing sexy in voting, campaigns are trying to do something about it and make voting at least a little more appealing to young people, by sprinkling an element of fun into it. Because it sure won't be as fun the next time.

Dunham herself has tried to assume a defensive position and divert the attention with some tweets, where she said that, while the vid may be superficial, the message is pretty serious: "Vote for women's rights". Which may or may not have been its main point - that judgment I'm leaving to the audience.

What I find more interesting is that this trick or a similar one was used by Putin's supporters during his latest election campaign earlier this year. The approach here seems to have been lifted from a series of Putin campaign ads, where a girl was wondering whom should she "do it" with in her first time. She went to a medium, saying that she'd better have her first sex with someone she loved, while the cards showed that the man for her was Putin, that he'd bring her happiness and security and protection like a stone wall. Not exactly the most romantic metaphor, but ultimately, as the ad implies, the best possible choice.

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Given the mental baggage, attention span, and priority ranking of the average voter (whichever country you look at, in fact), it's no surprise that such political ads tend to resonate much better than the ones saying "Use your mind, vote with your brain" (if those ever existed anyway). They are manipulative, and they do call upon the most basic instincts in the voter, but apparently they do work. So yes, appealing to reason and logic and asking people to know exactly what they want and why and how to achieve it, and to fully understand how this politician or the other would defend their interests (or more likely, which candidate would do less harm than the other), would ultimately be a futile effort; not to mention how boring such an advert would sound.

And people do switch on their TV expecting to get some entertainment after a grey dull day, right? Which is why you wouldn't see campaign ads of the "reasonable" sort any time soon. Instead, we'll be hearing more about death panels, this guy or the other planning to destroy America by bringing socialism and/or fascism (exactly why any ruler would want to rule over a ruined country is beyond me)... or something else of the same sort that's utter and complete bollocks. And we'll continue to nod our heads, or get enraged, depending which side of the barricade we've chosen to put our plump armchair-bound asses on.