The Lambinator
Jim Geraghty, one of the first to react to Carlyfornia’s instant classic “Demon Sheep” web ad, calling it “genius” and possibly “the Greatest Campaign Web Video of All Time,” has expanded on his thinking, which, like the ad itself, left many observers scratching their heads.
Geraghty provides a short review of the ad – stressing its strikingly bizarre juxtapositions of terminator werewolves in sheep’s clothing alongside conventional political messages, but if anything he under-plays the mini-movie’s aesthetic and narrative dislocations (an effect which he originally termed “psychedelic”). “Demon Sheep,” aka “FCINO: Fiscal Conservative in Name Only,” aka “#demonsheep: OMG – have you seen this ad?” is the El Topo, the Putney Swope, the Andalusian Dog, the Videodrome of campaign ads, at once so hilarious and yet mind-bending that I can’t bring myself to watch it a second time – not for fear of the lambinator, but because my brain is still stuck in a regressive thought-loop in which a manically chomping sheep is intercut with images of Tom Campbell while a seethingly hostile narrator addresses the latter like the Saw -killer or maybe Hannibal Lecter probing for soul-searing represssed memories, buried crimes, and moral terror.
Addressing the political tactical rationale for the ad, Geraghty stresses that it “instantly broke through a very noisy and crowded political environment, and got almost everyone who watched it to drop what they were doing and call their political junkie friends and say, ‘You have got to watch this.’” He believes that Fiorina had a purpose for the ad as rational as the ad itself is surreal:
Fiorina is behind, and she needs to shake up the race. After another day or two of mocking, it’s possible that this ad and the brouhaha will spur California media to look at Campbell’s record and see whether her criticisms are justified. And if that happens, then maybe he’ll lose some ground, and she’ll close the gap some. (On the other hand, the Chuck DeVore team has a DemonSheep.org site up already.)
This is a Hail Mary of an ad, which means there’s a very good chance that it won’t work. But a lot of the “traditional” advertised approaches wouldn’t have worked either, and would have just blended in with all the other ads in a busy election cycle. By comparison, ten years from now, if you hear the word, “demonsheep,” you will probably start giggling and know exactly what it was.
Since Geraghty has likely undergone numerous Demon Sheep viewings, some aberrations in judgment on his part are more than forgivable. Whatever the explanation, though his analysis makes some sense, it’s overdrawn.
With the California primaries still five months away, this isn’t the time for a “Hail Mary,” unless it’s one of those time-running-out in the first half/might as well go for it/nothing on the line kind of things. The polls taken since Tom Campbell jumped into the race show him with a 5- to 11-point lead over Fiorina, with Chuck DeVore’s numbers dropping into single digits, and with up to 40 -50% undecided. In short, the race is still up for grabs, and Campbell’s entry appears to have put DeVore in a lot more trouble than Fiorina. Incidentally, all three continue to poll close to “Senator Ma’am” Barbara Boxer, with Fiorina having come within 3 points in Rasmussen’s mid-January poll of likely voters. In a post-Brown political universe, it’s long past time for Senate handicappers to start mentioning California as one of the “in-play” states.
Prior to Campbell’s entry into the race, Fiorina had been maintaining a steady but not overwhelming lead over DeVore, a favorite of grassroots hard right conservatives, and had been directing her fire almost exclusively at Boxer. In such a volatile political environment and with the decision points still months away, it’s easy to over-interpret poll data, but Fiorina and her team may see the former DeVore vote as having rested on a free-floating ant-Carly or not-sold-on-Carly segment of the politically oriented electorate (no one else is paying attention yet). Why else would the numbers shift so heavily to Campbell, a vanilla Republican whom committed DeVoreiacs would be unlikely ever to support?
To re-gain her lead, Fiorina may not need to win all of those voters back: She just needs to push them away from Campbell. Say whatever you want about “Demon Sheep” – Ace (of Ace of Spades) called it “over-the-top,” which is a bit like being called tall by Manute Bol – but it hammers home the messages that Campbell is not a fiscal conservative, and that he’s the furthest thing imaginable from an anti-establishment politician, even if it leaves everyone a little confused about other matters (like who the sheep are supposed to be, what the whole purity test intro was about, whom Sarah Connor would endorse…). It strongly supports Fiorina’s credentials on the same two issues: The only “mention” of her name in the body of the ad is visual, via rendering of her signed “no tax” pledge, and the ad itself is obviously anything but “establishment” even before you get to its verbal content. These messages should sink in both for direct viewers of the ad and for those who see it excerpted on news shows and elsewhere.
From Fiorina’s perspective, if the fiscal conservative message is critical to Kali Republicans, then they can be herded away from Tom Campbell. Even if many move to DeVore in the short-term, she still stands to benefit in the 3-way calculus. The risk might be that she utterly collapses, as a laughingstock, but she has a large personal fortune and a long history to put against that threat – including the cancer-survivor status that made another recent Fiorina video also something of a hit (as aesthetically minimal as FCINO is polymorphously perverse).
Love her or, along with many voluble conservatives, hate her, there’s something about Carly Fiorina that sticks in your mind – she’s unpredictable, striking, and formidable. You almost feel sorry for whomever she was up against on her way to the top of Hewlett-Packard all those years ago.
As for DeVore, he’ s put up a funny, but rather cheap-looking web response in which his campaign attempts to piggyback on Demon Sheep (a difficult maneuver one might think). In his straightforward talking-to-the-camera style, he decries “Hollywood glitz and meaningless slogans,” strangely taking aim at two of California’s most economically significant surviving industries.
I think he should have gone 3-D, or, if that’ s too expensive, blue – especially since Meg Whitman’s got normal totally covered for now:
Makes sense when you consider she’s looking like a shoo-in on the R side, and will be facing Governor Moonbeam himself. Then again, the morning after Demon Sheep… everything else seems completely sensible.
Comments 29
“There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.”
Fiorina achieved viral amplification with the ad in a state where advertising in all markets is expensive. What’s not to like?
February 4th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
I suspect what Campbell’s cutting into is Carly’s cash flow. She was outdoing Senator Ma’am in that regard in the last 90 days, and then Campbell came along.
I confess to being somewhat annoyed at Campbell for this move, which seems to me to have muddied the waters for the always-behind CA GOP. Of all the candidates out there before the Scott Brown win persuaded Campbell to hop the fence, he (Campbell) is the one I would have picked for the gubernatorial race. Now Meg’s “it,” in terms of voters having the faintest clue who the GOP candidate is.
Can she beat Jerry Brown, whom the Dems will probably run? I don’t know, but I think the realistic outcome is a Brown win. But then, it IS 2010. With that in mind, I think the CA GOP needs to put everything it can into gaining seats in Sacramento.
February 4th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
@ J.E. Dyer:
I also found Campbell’s late entry into the race un-sporting. Maybe I’ve been wrong to assume that money wouldn’t be an issue for Fiorina.
I don’t have any trouble working up enthusiasm for either Whitman or Fiorina against Brown or Boxer. I like DeVore, but I think that from the very beginning he’s had “hopeless California conservative crusade” written all over him. Star power still counts for a lot in this state, and I think Fiorina and Whitman have it, and that they’re both good fits for the state at this time. I think Brown has “it,” too, unfortunately, but Whitman can take him.
Even Boxer has a kind of star quality about her – a dynamic personality that gives her a chance of simply overwhelming Campbell or DeVore and holding the seat against them.
February 4th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
I guess in the “white dwarf” sense, Boxer does have star power.
I think Whitman would show better against her than Fiorina, but that’s not the match-up in prospect. I’m a pragmatist and will vote for whatever R is not Boxer or (presumably) Jerry Brown. But I don’t think “business sense” is the answer for California right now. It’s a rescue from left-wing ideological self-destruct the state needs.
The GOP’s continuing series of centrists with star power will just keep producing a future of Ahnolds. And hey, I’d vote for Ahnold against Jerry Brown tomorrow; the ‘Nator has been at least some kind of brake on the utterly irresponsible legislature.
But the reasons we can’t get state spending under control are entirely ideological. The only way to do it is to change the state policy on open-ended entitlements and growth of government. There is no other way. It takes ideological certitude to change that. There is no such thing as fiscal discipline making it possible to keep growing government employment and entitlement benefits, and avoid uncontrollable debt.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
Whitman’s version of business sense, as she’s described it in interviews, is to do the same thing with the state that you would do with a failing business – the first step, in her view, being a “head count,” presumably with an eye to, ahem, consolidating (i.e., firing people). Coming from her, it doesn’t sound “mean.” We’ll have to see how her campaign develops and what she ends up committing to, but she’s running to the right of her image, and certainly to the right of the Governator. The Governator as candidate was to the right of the Governator as Governator, but times have changed, and Meg has an awful lot of self-confidence as an executive.
In other words, “business sense” – which is economic sense – could be the foot in the door, or the the thread pulled from the great entitlement sweater that forces you to unravel the whole thing.
The same goes for Carly vs Ma’am, to some extent, though in replacing Boxer, the symbolism and the single vote are probably at least as important as anything a new junior senator could be expected to do all by herself.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
I think that is why Fiorina ran the ad. She needs to stay close and not drift. The fact of the matter is that both Fiorina and Whitman are average at best candidates, and with Whitman that is more of a danger because as governor if she wins Sacramento pols will overwhelm her, just as they did Ahrnold. Fiorina as a back bench GOP senator would be fine because she would pull away a left wing democratic vote. But yes working tochange the state assembly would be the key. Personally, I think California is screwed big time and it is just a matter of time until it declares bankruptcy. Moody’s is looking at the US debt rating. If I held Cal bonds I would be selling.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Business sense always, always, always knuckles under to politics. Always. It has never prevailed over politics, not even once. The bodies across time are piled too high to wade through, from vainly trying to overcome politics with business sense.
Can’t be done. Take it to the bank.
Nice reference to Videodrome, though. What a weird cult flick. And you’re right, Demon Sheep will live forever in the annals of American public humor. They have not yet begun to riff on Demon Sheep. I kind of think Carly has just handed Campbell the baton, though.
February 4th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
@ J.E. Dyer:
Do we need to imagine Meg Whitman defeating politics in order to have a reason to hope she wins? It seems if I follow your logic to its conclusion, it would be senseless to care about real world electoral outcomes – or anyway there’d be as much reason to hope we get a creature of California business as usual to take us quicker to collapse.
Videodrome‘s one of my favorites. From time to time, over the years, I’ve considered posting under the name “Brian O’Blivion.”
February 4th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
J.E. Dyer wrote:
So far, Campbell hasn’t shown the wit to pick it up. Like DeVore, after a gesture or two meant to indicate that he “gets it,” it’s back to “let’s be serious.”
Interesting that the author of the ad turns out to be the same guy, Fred Davis, behind the McCain campaign’s “Celebrity” ad – a much more focused piece of work, quite effective in its moment.
February 4th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
I assume Carly knows that the Red Army won anyway.
I think this WAS a first half freebie. And so totally South Park. Nobody in his or her right mind who had any chance of winning would have run it days before an election.
Then again I’m from (sniff) New York.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:57 am
@ Seth Halpern:
You have to remember it’s California. CK and J.E. are two of only five people in the state who don’t consult their horoscope before venturing out to the grocery store.
February 5th, 2010 at 7:53 am
@Sully: JE doesn’t?
February 5th, 2010 at 7:58 am
J.E. Dyer wrote:
Yep, because the business exec has for the most part, regardless of everyone’s individual agendas, a common cause – the financial success of the company – because if it dies, so does everyone else. Execs lean on that common foe to make changes that are uncomfortable at best because everyone knows that is what needs to happen.
Politics, there is no common goal in government, and limited consequences for not focusing on the customer, so the business exec expects things to fall into line and they don’t. So bankruptcy is the only hope because then a trustee of the receivership will dictate terms – all union contracts ripped up, forced layoffs, wage cuts for the survivors, all consulting contracts ripped up, etc. California, probably Illinois and NJ, and NY are all toast. The hole is too deep and the interests too entrenched to fix. Mich and Florida aren’t too good either.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:12 am
@ Seth Halpern:
she asked herself WWNRAD instead.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:31 am
While it may be brilliant from a publicity standpoint, it’s unbelievably stupid as a vehicle of persuasion for all the obvious reasons, especially since the advent of the word “sheople.” The mixed metaphor of the actual sheep being “fiscal conservatives” but Campbell being a “wolf” but is actually a person in a cheesy sheep costume crawling along (btw, that sheepskin makes his ass look fat), the sheep on a pedestal, the red eyes, the “FCINO”, etc, etc. The visuals are so garbled with respect to the message that it’s worthless.
A Jerry Brown win would just cement Cal’s rep as a failed state.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:45 am
@ Barbara:
I don’t think this ad is about “persuasion” as much as it’s about sewing doubt and, for lack of a better word, implanting information and suspicion: “Campbell’s part of the fiscally disastrous state government,” “Campbell’s a taxes guy,” “Campbell’s pretending to be something he isn’t (like most politicians),” “Carly signed no-tax pledge”… etc.
The last two times Senator Ma’am was up for re-election, hardly anyone was even aware that there were campaigns going on. It’s incredibly easy in California for conventional politics to drop below the radar.
Right now, they’re discussing the ad on Fox with the perfect analyst for it, Greg Gutfeld. Again, we see excerpts that sum up the main points – it’s weird, Campbell is a bizarre lambinator FCINO (an acronym so bad that it’s memorable) – then the familiar meta-discourse: the tactic is just so crazy it might work – now with the added “and the Fiorina campaign says it’s only just begun with the wacky ads.”
Could be an empty threat – but you can bet the world’s political junkies and copy-desperate newsers are preparing to cover FCINO II or whatever it’s called. I think Davis wants to deliver a multi-part building narrative, like the McCain campaign wanted to do with its ads before events overwhelmed their media strategy in ’08.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:41 am
@CKM: How do you, like, BUILD on Demon Sheep? Like, you cut their sheepheads off and stand on top of the pile of sheepheads grinning and waving an axe? Totally.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
@ Seth Halpern:
Purely from a creative standpoint, the question is more “How do you NOT build on Demon Sheep?” Another psychedelic ad can go anywhere, can deepen the metaphor, maybe implicitly answering, maybe further confusing, maybe completely ignoring or shifting the questions about what and who the fiscal conservative sheep are. People would watch a conventionally “persuasive,” minimal ad, for any hint of demonsheep insanity. And would be coverable as “Fiorina gets serious” – as the call goes out on the intertubes, “I want my demon sheep!”
Tho your suggestion works for me.
Death to Deficitdrome! Long live the New Flesh!
February 5th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
@ Seth Halpern:
The next ad will be Carly carrying a shotgun through the herd dispatching the demons. Each one, after being shot, will morph into a tax and spend Campbell quote or scenario.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
I completely agree with what you say- I still think the ad is terrible, but it is memorable. And of all the things, CF’s signing the no tax pledge is the least memorable. Of course, by the end of it, I had no idea what office Fiorina was running for. Not that it matters…
The FCINO reminds me of a much funnier and more effective ad that Denny’s is running right now in which a guy does a riff about ‘cino’s for breakfast “Cappucino, frappucino, mochacino- foamy milk and coffee isn’t breakfast. I don’t know who this Chino guy is but he doesn’t know a thing about breakfast. I like his pants though.”
February 5th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
Of course we could call him a Tax Obsessed Conservative in Name Only (TOCINO, which is Spanish for bacon. But that would mean Demon pig, instead of demon sheep. Campbell is such a milquetoast candidate, that I think it overshoots the mark
February 5th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
I have a hot little grandniece who is totally goth and works part-time at a pet store. I bet she’d have some ideas!
February 5th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
@ CK MacLeod:
Well, yeah, but. I don’t think Campbell would ultimately benefit from belaboring Demon Sheep. He had the wit to not overreact to it in the curmudgeonly-serious manner of DeVore (get a sense of humor, already, Chuck). But it doesn’t do him a lot of good to try to be Jon Stewart about it either, and it looks from here like he recognizes that.
I have to thank Carly for bringing us this informational theme, however. In what universe would anyone have anticipated ever writing a sentence like “I don’t think Campbell would ultimately benefit from belaboring Demon Sheep”? We’ll be in her debt forever. Might as well be; we’re in debt to everyone else.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Incidentally, another reason – from a neuro-linguistic programming perspective – for the Fiorina campaign to create this ridiculous acronym, FCINO, is to subvert the DeVoriacs and Tea Partiers who incessantly accuse Fiorina of being a RINO. A typical post at HotAir when the DemonSheep Apocalypse was just beginning accused Fiorina, without evidence, of being a Dede Scozzafava, a Bay Area liberal, etc. Having people instead discussing whether she’s crazy or crazy like a fox, and whether Campbell is an FCINO, symbolically aligns Fiorina with the “radicals.” The point isn’t that she collects the Tea Partiers now, but that she remains or becomes available to them as a protest vehicle later.
February 5th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Who can say whether Carly Fiorina,
Played the California crowd like an ocarina,
When she released, the demon sheep,
And set the world wondering,
About Seth’s grandniece?
Does she preside, where fuster resides?
February 5th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
@CKM: So your concept is basically a Donner Tea Party with Carly Fiorina as the aspiring chef. Something to ruminate over!
February 5th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
@ Sully:
It’s his grandneice! No more of your saucy poetic licentiousness, cad !
February 5th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
@ fuster:
No licentiousness was intended. I simply used a one syllable word Seth himself had used. But I have changed it.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
How come when I’m being serious and complaining all anyone does is scoff???
what a world.
oh, well.
time to get some some hookers and get f***ing retarded drunk!
(should I have said sex workers?)
February 5th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
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