Chrysler won the all important commercial Super Bowl last night with the stunning and inspirational two minute “Halftime In America” commercial starring Clint Eastwood. They have now gone two for two using the same formula and “Imported From Detroit” tagline that won the hearts and minds of Super Bowl viewers last year with a similar spot starring Detroit’s own native son Eminem (Click Here For Eminem Super Bowl Video). Both commercials were great uplifting, chill inducing spots that convey a powerful message about recovery that most Americans want to believe.
Many noted Republicans have shit all over this commercial on the airwaves and various internets today by labeling it a pro Obama, pro auto industry bailout political campaign ad. Now of course anything pro America has to be construed by Republicans as pro Obama during an election year. Republicans are finding every way to paint the president as a failure. No matter what good has come out of the Obama administration, the Republicans will never give him a bit of credit. That’s just modern left/right politics in a presidential election cycle.
Fiat CEO Sergio Macchione has even roundly rejected claims that the ad was political in any way, but was rather a universal positive message for all Americans about the US, Detroit and auto industry comebacks (Fiat is now Chrysler’s parent company after Daimler-Benz offloaded them in 2009 during the Chrysler bankruptcy). But the CEO’s claims have not kept the wolves at bay. Nor has the fact that Clint Eastwood donated his earnings from the commercial to charity. The right wing media is using this anti bailout quote from Eastwood to attack and paint Eastwood as an Obama loving corporate sellout:
“We shouldn’t be bailing out the banks and car companies,” actor, director and Academy Award winner Eastwood told the Los Angeles Times in November 2011. “If a CEO can’t figure out how to make his company profitable, then he shouldn’t be the CEO.” – Clint Eastwood
Sure this could be considered a contradiction. But the ad is not quite specifically about the success of the auto bailouts. It showed imagery of people from all over America recovering from recent hardships like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, BP oil spill, etc. Eastwood is an admitted Libertarian, but has said that he agreed with the message of the ad. And I for one believe that Clint Eastwood doesn’t do ANYTHING Clint Eastwood doesn’t want to do.
Also to be clear, the auto bailouts have proven to be a success. And to give credit where credit is due, the auto bailouts were initiated under Bush, but molded, negotiated and enacted by Obama as one of his first acts of business in an attempt to save millions of jobs. Both Chrysler and General Motors have paid the government bailout loans back, and the newly reorganized General Motors is now the biggest automaker in the World…again. The same success can’t be said for Bush’s TARP bank bailout plan. But I digress.
Regardless of your political leanings, this was a great commercial with a great message starring one of my favorite actors/directors of all time. Like many Americans, I was genuinely moved. Now the trolls need to STFU and stop ruining this like they ruin everything.
