I just want to give a quick shout out and thanks to Mitt Romney, who is rolling out his announcement for president with a video of people holding corporate-looking signs with hand-scribbled notes on them.
He could have gone in the over-the-top movie trailer direction to make a personality-deficient candidate appear totally bad ass. Republican Tim Pawlenty’s video was a true innovation in presidential campaign videos, an important contribution to the canon, thanks to this former Hillary Clinton supporter.
But Romney decided, instead, to pay homage to Barack Obama. When I was director of online video for Obama’s 2008 campaign, we put together “Signs of Hope and Change” which featured actual grassroots supporters holding hand-made signs that said “Hope” or “Change” real big in the middle of the paper, so it was clear.
I’m not sure what’s going on with Romney’s signs. There’s some small print at the bottom of the page, and a white guy scribbled “Diversity” above Romney’s name while standing in front of some other white guys wearing ties and talking on their cell phones.
Romney’s website says “we stand for freedom, opportunity and hope.” I’m already nostalgic for hope, ’08-style.
Kate Albright-Hanna