Co-stanza!

To follow up on the trend of politicians seeking to avoid YouTube, some – like Florida State Rep Mike Weinstein – have gone the other direction with a video Mediaite’s Steven Jessop has (rightfully) called the “Cheesiest Campaign Video Ever”:

Cringe-worthy, isn’t it?  Jessop compares it to Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark video.  It took me back to syndicated Saturday-morning kids shows on independent stations like WPIX in the early 1990s, where kids dressed like stunt doubles for Screech would bop around on stage in neon orange t-shirts and denim overalls.  And, it turns out, the company that produced the video makes educational programming for kids, so that’s probably what they were going for.

So it’s a bad campaign tactic, right?  Not so fast.  I thought so at first, too, but then I sat down to make fun of it, and the song stuck in my head.  Jessop pointed it out in his post, and by gum he’s right: the song is pretty catchy.  Like a commercial jingle, it’s annoying at first, then you hear it a few times and you’re humming it in the shower.

Weinstein is an incumbent, so though it may make him seem a little out of touch with younger voters it probably won’t hurt – though they’ll probably lose Kenny Loggins’ vote.