viz.

Today I was introduced to Jack Nicholson's video endorsement of Clinton. It is currently making the rounds on YouTube:

Here's the problem I see with his montage-style endorsement: Nicholson lets his fictional characters do the talking and the most obvious problem here is that Nicholson rarely plays sympathetic characters. When the Joker asks me "Who do you trust?" and Col. Jessop from A Few Good Men tells me how military leadership should work, I don't feel benevolent towards their recommendation. Then there's the appalling moment when we return to Jessop to hear him talk about the sexiness of a woman in power. Is speaking through the mouths of liars, murderers, and psychopaths the best strategy to forward an endorsement?

Are these the cultural icons one wants associated with one's campaign?

At least, to follow up on Tim's post about the Devil and Hillary Clinton, we have no Witches of Eastwick

Check out a new political ad from the Clinton campaign:

Is sarcastic, rather than bitch, the new black? To build on our discussions of the image of women in politics (see John's post about Michelle Obama's halo and Tim's recent post about Hillary and/as the Devil), I find the discussion of the two women's "edgy" humor to be quite interesting and I think it affects the way that their images are produced and read.

See this earlier discussion of iconographic photography on the campaign trail.

First spotted at Wonkette

As the Democratic primaries have continued on throughout the winter, columnists and pundits have been reaching out to find ever more ways of distinguishing between Obama and Clinton. Salon has posted an article analyzing the design of the candidate’s logos, while Clay Spinuzzi has blogged on the contrasting designs of Obama and Clinton campaign flyers being distributed in Texas (without any images, unfortunately).

Barack Obama has taken some heat for remarks made to a New York Post reporter attacking Al Sharpton (who’s had a lot to deal with lately, thank you very much) which pundits are arguing were made by an Obama operative. Now there’s this: