Bob McCarty Writes

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With less than four weeks to go before Americans elect their next president, I fear the outcome of the Nov. 4 election (i.e., a Barack Obama win) will have me thinking about the name of an anti-tobacco advertising campaign during the next four years — and possibly longer.

“Nothing Will Ever Be the Same” is the name of the ad campaign which, according to a New York Times article three months ago, prompted thousands of New Yorkers to quit cigarettes last year.  Memorable in the campaign’s print pieces and television ads were images of 53-year-old man holding an artificial voice box to his throat, the modern-day tool of a man unable to speak after having his cancerous larynx removed.  According to the Times’ article, the “Nothing Will Ever Be the Same” campaign resulted in an above-the-national-average decline in the number of smokers in the “Big Apple.”

With most opinion polls showing the Democratic Party nominee holding a sizable lead over Republican John McCain, “Nothing Will Ever Be the Same” also seems an appropriate name for an ad campaign promoting the McCain-Palin ticket during these final weeks leading up to decision day.

In place of a cancer victim holding something to his throat, each of the McCain-Palin ads can highlight an ordinary American’s struggle in dealing with a side effect of living under an Obama Administration:

• Taxes will increase – Obama’s tax rate would be the highest individual tax rate since the Jimmy Carter days.  An ad could show a frustrated homeowner writing a check, dated 2009, for thousands of dollars, made out to the IRS.
  

• Abortions will increase — Obama’s “Freedom of Choice Act” would mean 125,000 more abortions.  An ad could show children disappearing from a school playground.

• Small-town America will be ridiculed — “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”  An ad could show a caricature of Obama looking out the window of a presidential limousine as it zips through the only stoplight intersection in a small town.

• National security will be compromised — Obama will forgo national security interests in exchange for short-term political gain.  An ad could show Obama kneeling before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his meeting “without preconditions.”

• Business enterprises will suffer greatly, cost jobs — “We’re ready to play offense for organized labor. It’s time we had a president who didn’t choke saying the word ‘union.’ A president who strengthens our unions by letting them do what they do best: organize our workers. . . . I will make it the law of the land when I’m president of the United States. . . . ”  An ad could show a small business owner hanging an “Out of Business” sign in the window of his main street storefront.

The graphic above right represents my best effort to get the McCain-Palin camp started with this effort.  Feel free to copy and share it.

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