Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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    • Well, there will only ever be one Mike Gravel. At least as far as my heart’s concerned.

  5. Plus, you’re right Will. The cigarette is really weird. Especially the fact that it’s just kind of stuck in there with a quick edit at the very end.

    • Yes! It’s not just that he’s smoking, but the weird insert. If it had been a guy smoking and talking, it wouldn’t have been nearly so weird. It’d be like a guy talking to you on a smoke break or something. I could have worked that into an ad not nearly so awkwardly. But they just shoved it in there.

      Daniel Drezner says it’s a shout-out to an overlooked demographic that is likely to die before they can hold you accountable for your campaign promises.

      I guess it pertains to his opposition to smoke bans?

  6. I still can’t believe he would pander to the smoke makers and users like this. This is very strange to say the least. What good reason would you have to do this?

  7. Are you people that caught up in the Prohibitionists’ brainwashing that all you register is that there’s a smoking shot? “They just shoved it in there”???? Like it wasn’t connected to the bigger message?? That many of you can’t tell it’s symbolism gives you no right to critique the ad. How can you when you divorce the act from the symbolism.

    Founder, Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment (C.L.A.S.H.)

    • Audrey, it wasn’t connected to the *rest of the commercial*. If you want to add the cigarette as a symbol, have him holding the (lit) cigarette while he’s talking (then maybe taking a puff). It’s the execution more than anything that struck me as weird. It was just spliced in there.

      • Sorry Will, you’re just proving my point. It absolutely WAS connected to the rest of the commercial. He need not have smoked during. That he smoked at the end was the punctuation point of his speech. Just like, for instance, a candidate talks about how he’s all for being a family man. At the end there’s a scene of him picking his kid up from school. Would you say it only makes sense if he would have been at the scene of the school while giving his speech?

  8. I love Herman Cain because he isn’t your status quo politician. He actually is a proven “Problem Solver” that has been successful and has defied all odds against him. As I am a reformed smoker, this ad reminds me more of the average American. I am a truck driver who travels coast- to- coast and see and deal with the real average Americans in the work-force who are tired of the status quo politicians who really doesn’t have a clue of middle America. Herman Cain does. He embraces the true problems that we face here at home and abroad. He understands the main problem we face; that is America and Americans have to be first to still be the leader of the free world!!!!!!!

  9. Does this look like a prank to anyone else but me? …I cannot think of any clear minded candidate running or even considering releasing this ad.

  11. I think the smoking bit was supposed to symbolize the post-orgasm instinct we all possess. And, even though I’m watching it on a computer with no sound, I can tell the guy has total chub for Cain as he builds to his climax, then relaxes with a smoke. Who hasn’t? I basically think the whole thing says “Happy Endings with Cain!! 2012!!”

  12. It is not a pro-smoking ad. It is a pro-individual liberty ad.

    If the guy had been taking a hit off a joint you would all be fine with it.

  13. We’re gonna end up with Romney. And he’s gonna lose to Obama. And everyone’s gonna stand around looking at each other all “wha-huh? Obama? Lowest approval rating ever and he gets re-elected? Wha? huh? How?!”

  14. BOTH of my parents DIED from lung cancer directly related to their years of smoking.  This Cain ad is both surprising and extremely disturbing.

    There is NO WAY I could ever consider voting for Cain after watching this ad.  If Cain goes up against Obama, I will NOW vote for Obama. That is how I feel about this STUPID AD.

    Cain’s judgement is very bad. I could never TRUST HIM to be President.  I don’t recall ever feeling such MISTRUST before from a candidate.

    And I am a staunch Republican! Go Mitt!

    Smile at that, stupid…

    Naples, Florida

    • Remember the Clinton ad where Hillary and Bill were talking about onion rings?

      My mother died of an onion allergy. My father? My father was Vince Foster.

      So I voted third party.

      • And it fishes me off when people say The Sopranos was better than The Wire. So I wrote in David Simon.

  15. Agreed on the perception of villainy in the smile. It’s not the smile, qua smile, that gives it a sinister cast, rather it’s the slow nature of its development that gives it a calculating air. Not a quick, friendly happy-to-see-you-let’s-go-have-a-beer smile, more of a “now you see that my trap has been sprung, you hapless victim” kind of smile.

    This ad is totally awesome – in a meta, batsh!t crazy sort of way, that is.

  16. So little thought or effort went into this ad. I could see why voters who don’t want a mainstream politician for president might find this appealing. But, I wonder if he would put similar thought and effort into policies, diplomacy, and strategies if he were president. It’s frightening to contemplate!

  17. Hit and Run over at reason was discussing Cain’s latest batshit insane ad and I read this comment and laughed out loud:

    (Pro Liberate wrote it)

    He’s offering to bring back the crazy that the rest of the world once feared and respected in the United States. Used to be, no one was quite sure what we’d do–go isolationist, go to war, invent demon weapons with our science and eradicate cities. We were muy loco. And with President Cain, we can be that kind of crazy again.

    Bring back the insane: Cain 2012.

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