[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7HiQRM7BA[/youtube]I’m at an academic conference at Stanford Law School this weekend and have had my attention drawn to the latest internet sensation: The “Demon Sheep” Video. The video was produced for Carly Fiorina’s Republican Senate campaign. It is a 3 and 1/2 minute “attack ad” against Tom Campbell, a respected former Stanford law professor and congressman.
To dramatize its claim that Campbell is a big-spending wolf in fiscal-conservative sheep’s clothing, the video contains, well, a demon sheep — a sheep with glowing red devilish eyes.
The ad apparently has more than 375,000 views is something of an eye-opener, leading Mary Ham to write at the Weekly Standard: “Someday, when your children are grown and the election of 2010 has long past, people will ask where you were when the demon sheep first came to American politics.” (Read the whole thing here.)
The ad is being widely lampooned across the internet (example here). To mock the ad, another opponent of Fiorina in the Republic primary (Chck DeVore) has website that is the “home” of SFTEODSFOPD, or Society for the Eradication of Demon Sheep from our Political Discourse.
The ad seems a bit over the top to me. While the ad’s defenders say it is attracting lots of attention to the Fiorina campaign, the kind of buzz it is attracting will test the old saw that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I close with [insert your favorite sheep pun here ...]
Update: A reader suggests I should have closed with any of the following:
1. The ad’s creator should take it on the lamb.
2. Ewe can fool all the voters some of the time, and some of the voters all of the time, but ewe. . . .
3. Fame is fleecing.
4. Baaaa humbug.
5. Where there’s a wool there’s a way.
6. I must be a mutton for punishment.
7. Cogito ergo ram. (I think; therefore, I ram.)
Cthulhu4Senate says:
Demon sheep have nothing on me.
February 7, 2010, 1:36 amrpt says:
Fiorina’s real problem is her record at HP. Perhaps some will remember her as the demon CEO.
February 7, 2010, 1:45 amTony says:
She’s trying to pull the wool over our eyes…
February 7, 2010, 1:53 amTRE says:
I can’t even watch it, with the quick cuts and tone.
February 7, 2010, 1:59 amjosh bornstein says:
Paul, just to help out . . .
February 7, 2010, 2:02 am1. The ad’s creator should take it on the lamb.
2. Ewe can fool all the voters some of the time, and some of the voters all of the time, but ewe. . . .
3. Fame is fleecing.
4. Baaaa humbug.
5. Where there’s a wool there’s a way.
6. I must be a mutton for punishment.
7. Cogito ergo ram. (I think; therefore, I ram.)
EH says:
This has to be intended as internet-only amateurishness in pursuit of attention-whoring.
And yeah, Carly’s playing with fire lambasting others for setting stages. Some might even say it’s a bad pretext.
February 7, 2010, 2:03 amyankee says:
Seems to me the best defense of the ad is that getting people to view it exposes people to Fiorina’s message about Campbell. The only mention of Fiorina by name is in the use of her first name in small print at the very end of the ad. Few viewers will notice (or remember) which of Campbell’s opponents paid for the ad. Talk of the demon sheep also ensures that lots of people will be exposed to the ad’s message secondhand; those people are even less likely to associate it with Fiorina.
February 7, 2010, 2:04 amBerkeleyBeetle says:
Campbell says he’s been raking it in in the wake of the ad. So someone benefited, and it was someone in Fiorina’s party…
February 7, 2010, 2:28 amR. Sherwood says:
In defense of the ad, thought it was refreshing to have a good laugh from a political ad. Well done.
February 7, 2010, 2:39 amWere I still in CA, it would cause me to pause in voting for Campbell.
I wouldn’t care to vote for Fiorina based on the ad though, don’t consider fiscal conservatives sheep, nor would I care for a sheep as a politician representing me (nor a sheep in Maverick’s clothing ala McCain).
Cato The Elder says:
Loves it. It’s cheesy and over-the-top, but in a humorous way; I don’t think it’s the type of commercial that will get people’s dander up about Campbell but it will make many take notice of Fiorina’s campaign earlier than they otherwise would. Which is always helpful.
February 7, 2010, 2:39 amCato The Elder says:
I wonder if reporters/photographers get paid extra for pictures of politicians grimacing.
February 7, 2010, 2:42 amIf Only says:
…it rose to the level of 60s Batman campy, she’d be the darling of the internet.
February 7, 2010, 2:46 amThe “Demon Sheep” Video | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] reading here: The “Demon Sheep” Video [...]
February 7, 2010, 5:54 amBT says:
Hopefully the Demon Sheep does not have any Demon Seed and reproduces.
February 7, 2010, 6:22 amDavid Welker says:
I thought the ad was hilarious. It was just so bizarre.
But should a primary be determined by comedy? I am not sure.
February 7, 2010, 7:08 amFederal Dog says:
I laughed out loud. Is anyone really taking this seriously?
February 7, 2010, 7:40 amNR says:
I’m so confused. I get that the demon sheep is Carly’s opponent, and the pigs represent wasteful spending. But who are the regular, cute, fluffy non-demon sheep? Voters? Californians? True fiscal conservatives?
February 7, 2010, 7:46 amConnecticut Lawyer says:
I guess California is now the state where the women are scarce, the sheep are scared, and virgin wool is hard to find.
February 7, 2010, 8:33 amA Conceited Jerk says:
This kind of literal “demonization” of opponents may be new to American politics, but it isn’t new everywhere. Compare the “New Labour, New Danger” campaign run by the Conservatives in the 1997 U.K. election:
http://images.google.com/images?rls=en&q=new+labour+new+danger
February 7, 2010, 8:50 amhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG0E4A3k45s
Sean O'Hara says:
Carly ain’t got nothin’ on Dwight McKenna — “My opponent steals body parts from the morgue!”
February 7, 2010, 9:17 amAH says:
Cal Buzz has a great summary:
http://www.calbuzz.com/2010/02/carlys-demon-sheep-meet-emegs-5m-tv-buy/
I believe the two best points are:
1) “the fact that calling the soft-spoken, terminally mild-mannered Tom Campbell a “wolf” is the coolest thing anybody’s said about him in 30 years”
2) “the central message of the ad portrays conservative Republicans -– the people whose support Fiorina is supposedly seeking — as a flock of dumbass ovine, baa-baa-baaing while mindlessly munching grass and mooning the big bad wolf lurking in the meadow.”
It certainly generated buzz, but any ad your opponent emails to all of his supporters had to be seriously flawed!
February 7, 2010, 9:31 amProfane says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gEDUDmZkyc
February 7, 2010, 10:21 amCornellian says:
Carly, Carly, Carly, the ad is as amateurishly bad as your tenure at Hewlett-Packard.
Campbell is the obviously far superior candidate. Frankly I wish he’d stayed in the governor’s race as he’s a far better candidate for the Republican nomination than Whitman or Poizner and had a far better chance of beating Jerry Brown than either of them.
Unfortunately, Cassell has probably ruined Campbell’s chances at the Republican nomination for Senate by revealing that Campbell is a former Stanford law professor. To the Republican base, that probably counts as a skeleton in the closet.
February 7, 2010, 10:35 amrpt says:
You certainly don’t want a “law professor at the lectern”.
February 7, 2010, 10:48 amsol vason says:
Wolves have yellow eyes. Wolves in sheeps clothing have yellow eyes ubless they have just flown in non-stop from New York.
February 7, 2010, 11:01 amCareless says:
He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing and he’s pretending to be a fiscal conservative, so the fiscal conservatives would be the sheep. I’m not sure they thought that one all the way through.
February 7, 2010, 11:05 amrmd says:
The great thing about “RINO” as a pejorative label is that it can be pronounced easily. “FCINO” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue and causes me to associate the clumsiness of the word with the sponsoring candidate.
February 7, 2010, 11:14 amreadery says:
I remember when I used to take an Amtrak train on the East coast, somewhere in north Philadelphia there was a sign that said something like ‘John Smith and Sons, Wool Pullers’
I used to imagine that they must get a big surge of business during election season. If they’re still around, I wonder if they helped produce the ad.
February 7, 2010, 11:20 amAnonymous says:
Maybe it’s time for Campbell to take off the gloves? Portfolio magazine recently called Carly Fiorina the 19th worst American CEO in history. (Dick Fuld was #1, if you’re wondering.) Here is the link, and the summary:
It takes talent to break the bottom 20. Mediocrity won’t get you there, you really have to work at it.
February 7, 2010, 12:01 pmBill Woods says:
“… that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I close with [insert your favorite sheep pun here ...]”
Back up a line, and quote Dolly Parton: “There’s no such thing as baaa-d publicity.”
February 7, 2010, 12:57 pmbyomtov says:
This ad is ridiculous on so many fronts it’s bizarre. First of all the whole notion of Fiorina campaigning on financial matters is ludicrous. Ask the HP shareholders who lost more than half of their investment on her watch. Who would trust her to manage a petty cash account?
Then, part of the ad seems to mock Campbell for claimingg to be a fiscal conservative while favoring tax increases. WTF? Does Fiorina even know what a fiscal conservative is? It’s someone who wants a fiscally responsible government. Sometimes that means you need tax increases. (Hate to break to some of you, but it’s true).
February 7, 2010, 1:07 pmjon says:
Ars longa, vita brebis.
February 7, 2010, 1:11 pmGuy says:
We’re not talking about fiscal conservatives, we’re talking about True Fiscal Conservatives (TM)… you know, people who cut taxes, then attack their opponents simultaneously for (1) cutting spending on existing programs to match, (2) trying to increase spending on or create other programs, (3) allowing large deficits to result from the tax cuts, and (4) opposing the tax cuts.
Obviously, True Fiscal Conservatives (TM) run into problems when they have the majority, they handle that by ramping up deficit spending and tax cuts exponentially, quickly lose the next election, then blame their successors for the problem, while still obstructing any attempts to fix it (e.g. see the Republicans under Bush).
February 7, 2010, 1:41 pmyankee says:
Based on the policy preferences of most self-identified fiscal conservatives, the fiscal conservative platform appears to be thus:
1) Whine about spending and the deficit.
February 7, 2010, 1:45 pm2) Refuse to propose or support cuts in any programs that are actually popular.
3) Demand increases in spending on those programs you personally like.
4) Refuse to raise any taxes for any reason.
5) Demand cuts in capital gains taxes, estate taxes, corporate income taxes, and the top marginal income tax rate.
6) Continue to whine about spending and the deficit.
Guy says:
Our posts are substantially similar, there’s only one way to resolve this… fight to the death for the right to comment on this topic.
February 7, 2010, 1:49 pm1040 says:
Prof. Cassell, I am surprised you find the ad so strange/weird/troublesome given your own attempt at comical fearmongering a week or so ago about the Adbulmutallab case. Is it the obviousness of the ad’s attempt that makes you dislike it so much?
February 7, 2010, 4:02 pmmariner says:
Based on the reaction to the spot, it would appear that Portfolio was mistaken about Fiorina — apparently she is not “a consummate self-promoter”.
February 7, 2010, 5:39 pmDavid Nieporent says:
Not in California, where spending is way way way way out of control.
February 7, 2010, 9:23 pmbyomtov says:
David Nieporent,
OK. Spending is out of control in CA. But Fiorina is running for the US Senate, isn’t she? So what do CA’s budget woes have to do with that?
And BTW, it doesn’t seem to me that, even given some spending cuts, it’s irrational and “fiscally unconservative,” to suggest that part of the solution in CA is tax increases.
February 7, 2010, 10:59 pmElliot says:
I never heard of Tom Campbell, but I will remember that ad. The message came across very well, and in an entertaining way. I think we mighy remember this one just like that “Daisy” ad attacking Goldwater. There is a streak of production genius in both.
February 7, 2010, 11:27 pmGramarye says:
I think In re Six-Hundred and Sixty Six Demon Sheep would be a great name for an in rem case.
February 8, 2010, 11:37 amCB says:
Well, the ad certainly convinced me not to vote for Fiorina. I guess she really was as bad as HP says she was.
February 8, 2010, 1:00 pmGuy says:
That makes no sense whatsoever, obviously slashing spending needed to be done, but this isn’t necessarily an either/or proposition. Considering that schools, fire departments, and libraries were being closed, a little bit of a tax hike was called for, don’t you think? There’s no way slashing spending alone would have solved the problem.
February 8, 2010, 1:26 pmOwen H. says:
The first thing that pops into mymind is a contraction of “F*** If I Know”
February 8, 2010, 1:53 pmDavid Nieporent says:
No, I don’t think so. Setting aside the odd notion that schools, fire departments, and libraries should be inviolate, that’s just standard politician tactics. You start with threatening the highly visible, popular things in order to induce the public to support tax hikes. You don’t threaten to close the department which regulates cosmetology licensing and the department of insurance; you threaten to close firehouses. Just like school districts threaten to cut the football team, not the foreign language department.
February 8, 2010, 10:06 pmbjr26 says:
David, not sure if you live in California, but under Proposition 98, approximately 40% of the state general fund budget is constitutionally dedicated to education. Due to plummeting general fund revenues as a result of the Great Recession, schools have lost about $19 billion in total funding over the past two budget cycles. Schools would have lost even more if Governor Schwarzenegger had successfully suspended Proposition 98′s minimum guarantee (he wanted to but the teachers’ unions were prepared to go to war, so he backed down). Ironically, Governor Schwarzenegger did indeed to threaten close down firehouses, as well as public parks and health care for destitute mothers, but he did so in support of further spending cuts.
February 8, 2010, 10:41 pmDavid Nieporent says:
If that were really the case, it would drop California education spending all the way down to the dark days of… 2000. Now, if one believes that back around the turn of the century, California schools were so terribly underfunded that they represented a dystopian third world nightmare, then I would agree that California’s problem is too little taxation. If one believes, on the other hand, that adding $19 billion in spending in just a decade represents out of control spending, then, well, I would maintain that California’s problem is out of control spending.
Over the last twenty years, California’s revenues have shot up from about $40 billion to over $100 billion. The problem isn’t lack of revenues.
February 8, 2010, 11:42 pmScott says:
How is raising taxes not fiscally conservative? California is supposed to balance the budget solely through spending cuts? Raising the gas tax would be a responsible thing to do given the massive deficits that must be closed.
February 9, 2010, 12:45 amScott says:
How is raising taxes not fiscally conservative? California is supposed to balance the budget solely through spending cuts? Raising the gas tax would be a responsible thing to do given the massive deficits that must be closed.
February 9, 2010, 12:45 amDavid Nieporent says:
That would be my suggestion, yes.
February 9, 2010, 8:58 pmwatch some movies says:
raising taxes should be the last option. everybody hates it.
June 18, 2010, 11:05 am