The Clampdown

So the Presidential race is now in its final weeks, the debates are history, early voting has started, and the Obama campaign is desperate to show just how unserious it is. There’s a new ad that’s been getting an enormous amount of play featuring actress/writer/director Lena Dunham, the creative force behind the HBO show Girls, a Sex And The City for twentysomethings. The ad features Dunham talking in the hyper-excited, slightly disjointed, way that ironic hipster doofuses confuse with wit as she draws a parallel between voting for Barack Obama and…losing your virginity? Yeah, that’s right.

The most amazing thing about this ad is that it’s official. This isn’t some ridiculous video put together without the campaign’s knowledge. This is put out by Obama For America, and was promoted on Twitter by Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. What on Earth were they thinking?

A favorite Democrat meme this campaign has been that Republicans are waging a “war on women.” But watch the ad above. Who is it portraying women as smitten schoolgirls willing to vote for a guy who promises them birth control? Who is it portraying women conflating voting for Barack Obama with the promise of great first-time sex? (Come to think of it, who is that thinks first-time sex is ever great?)

The obvious jokes have been made a million times already: voting for Barack Obama is a lot like getting screwed, etc. But there’s a serious question here. At a time when tens of millions of Americans are out of work or underemployed, when the economy is barely growing at all, when we are $16 trillion dollars in debt, when we have troops fighting and dying overseas, why is the Obama campaign even considering ads like this one? It’s not funny, cute, or charming. The casual misogyny of portraying women in this vapid and superficial way is disturbing. The unsubtle mockery of virginity (it’s apparently “super uncool” to be “like, oh I wasn’t ready”) is an insult to anyone who actually takes sex and sexuality seriously. Barack Obama is the father of two young girls. Would he be comfortable seeing the words in this ad coming from the mouths of his daughters?

At the end of the day, the ad is pathetic. Is this really what the Left thinks is hip and edgy…a plea for more free stuff in exchange for a vote/sex? Is the campaign (or, for that matter, Lena Dunham) even remotely aware of how unlikable this ad is? At a time when there are major issues confronting the United States, the Obama campaign starts their closing argument by insinuating that women should be so grateful for Obamacare they would be willing to sleep with the President. If this ad doesn’t convince you that we need a change in Washington, nothing will.

And for the record, my first time was with Ronald Reagan in 1984. Best vote I ever had.