Ford made a big splash with conservative groups when they ran an ad a couple months ago where some guy said he bought his Ford because he didn’t want to buy a car from a company that was bailed out by the government. Then apparently liberal groups got mad, and Ford pulled the ad, claiming it had run its course anyway, and then they replaced it with another and then another press conference interview ad, where they say other stuff about why they bought the cars. These are boring. What would have been fun is if they had said it was just a coincidence that the first ad had a guy who didn’t like the bailouts, and that more ads were coming; but when they showed the new ads, each one was more and more anti-Obama in tone, and then each time they could say that they didn’t know it would seem like that, and that the people were just being honest, etc. That would be so funny!
So the second ad could have had some lady say she bought her Ford because she “didn’t want no pansy-assed electric Commie car, like that Socialist activist president wants to force us to drive!” Then the next ad could be a Larry the Cable Guy look-alike guy who says: “I bought a Ford ‘cause I wasn’t gonna waste my hard-earned money on a company that supports a secret Muslim who’s tryin’ to overthrow our country!” And then they could have some lady with a “Forget, Hell!” hat with a Confederate soldier on it say: “I bought a Ford because they didn’t take no bribe money from that Kenyan interloper who’s pretending to be our president!” And then whenever anyone complained about it, Ford could just say that they didn’t know they’d say that, and they were just showing random Americans expressing their honest opinions, and why didn’t they like the First Amendment, etc. That would be a hoot! And I’ll bet they’d sell a lot of cars to Tea Party types too! But they could kiss everyone else goodbye, I’ll bet.
But apparently the White House complained to Ford about that first anti-bailout ad (They deny it, but I’m assuming they’re lying. They are politicians, after all.), and that’s when they changed the ad. But if the White House had leaned on Ford about the ad, it would have been a perfect revenge to cherry-pick extreme conservatives for the following ads, and then just to make a public apology saying they were sorry about them, but it’s not their fault if everyone disagrees with the direction the country’s taken. We rarely see stuff like that happen, so it would have been hilarious! But I’ll bet they’d find that Ford had a whole new set of gas-mileage standards to meet if they did it!
(BTW: This isn't a political statement: I just think it would have been hilarious if they had done that with the Ford ads. Personally, I’m glad they saved the auto industry, but I understand the criticism of bailing out failing institutions too. I just think it’s more the economy at the moment, and that the auto companies were heading in the right direction when the crash occurred.)
Here’s that Ford ad with the anti-bailout guy:
