Obama Zombies: How the Obama Machine Brainwashed My Generation (9 page)

And the always classy and tactful Madonna had this to contribute: "I'm so fucking happy right now."
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Sherri Shepherd of
The View
broke down in tears over Obama's victory, recalling that she looked at her baby and said mawkishly, "You don't have to have limitations."
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Singer John Mellencamp remarked that while he's written countless songs about racial harmony, even he couldn't believe that "a man of color could be president of the United States." He added, "I am so proud of America."
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Nothing like believing that your fellow Americans are all racists, Johnny boy.

Actress Scarlett Johansson said the "overwhelming hope that Obama inspires is infectious."
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Hate to break the news to you, but there wasn't a landslide for hope. The election was much closer than you wished. B.H.O. won 53 percent of the vote. On the other hand, 58 million Americans gave your guy the middle finger, and there wasn't any Hollywood star around to pledge them out of it.

Hollywood had a stake in the election. In true self-absorbed lefty style, a victory for Obama would be a self-congratulating victory for the Hollywood elite. And thus the tactics were, in many ways, a confirmation of star power writ large.

For example, musician Dave Matthews sent out an email to a million of his fans to endorse Obama.
Rolling Stone
asked the musician why he was so passionate about Obama over candidates of the past. And in Matthews, not surprisingly, we have a guy who thinks lack of experience is actually a qualification to be president:

The biggest argument that people can lay against him is his lack of qualifications, which is such an empty argument. The most important qualification a candidate can possess is
being able to inspire people to want to do things for the country. The great presidential speeches by people like Kennedy or Lincoln--what made them great were their words, and the fact that they moved mountains with their words. We don't remember JFK's qualifications. We don't remember his connections or his experience in the political arena. What we remember are the qualities that made him stand apart from all that. That's why people are being inspired by Obama. He makes me feel like it is possible to change the world.
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Somehow, comparing Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, ender of slavery, and preserver of our union, to Barack Obama seems--oh, I don't know--
insane
. In fact, the only thing the thug from Chicago and the president from Illinois have in common is that without Lincoln, Dave Matthews could have
owned
Obama.

But Matthews, strangely, went on to defend Obama's inexperience as a plus. He mocked the other candidates for insisting that "you need to have experience in order to be able to move forward."

"What a bunch of crap," said the South African-born singer. "I don't want someone who's experienced in the present-day arena of politics--it's hopelessly failed this country. Both sides of the aisle, without question, have dismally let the American people down. We need a person with fresh ideas and an incredible eloquence that really cuts to the core of so many issues with just a real frankness."
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Actually, neither Matthews nor any of his ilk can point to a fresh, new idea from Obama. It's warmed-over liberalism, plain and simple. It's more big government and a retread on redistribution of wealth or, as Obama put it famously to Joe the Plumber, "spreading the wealth around." Nothing new in any of this, but to Obama
Zombies who have little knowledge of American history (after all, leftists have gutted it as a requirement in America's top colleges and universities), failed liberal policies may seem fresh and new, especially when advocated by their favorite singer or movie star. Ergo the following action hero Obama allusion from Dave Matthews:

I really think Obama could move mountains, not because he's some kind of spectacular superhuman, but because he moves people in a real way. . . . When I look at Obama, I feel like, "Wow, here's this man who's going to try to break down some walls and try and revive the Constitution after the three-decade-long beating it has taken. Maybe we can finally resuscitate that poor old dusty piece of paper that's been kicked into the corner for a long time."
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But perhaps one of Team Obama's best and most effective uses of rockers like Dave Matthews came in the form of a little something I like to call the "Dave Matthews Electoral Magnet" tactic. During the Democrat primary, Obama's team deployed a smart if cynical campaign tactic that is a perfect representation of all that is wrong with the Zombification of my generation. At an Indiana University pro-Hillary rally, Bill Clinton was delivering one of his trademark finger-wagging lectures in support of his wife when Team Obama's Bloomington-based office leapt into warp-speed Zombification mode. As Clinton was speaking, B.H.O.'s minions began handing out free Dave Matthews tickets. You can imagine the viral marketing effect, with college kids burning up their texting keyboards and mad dialing on their iPhones to tell their soon-to-be-Zombified friends that, "Dude, Obama is hooking us up with
free Dave Matthews tickets. Leave the Slick Willy speech and come get the free tickets, bro!"

Now you might think that such blatant, crass pandering would hold no sway on young, enlightened minds. But you would be wrong.

"I was leaning toward Obama," said Jason Schechtman, nineteen, of Deerfield, Illinois, a student at IU, "but this sealed the deal for sure." "The Obama campaign announced this right as [Bill Clinton] was about to speak, and it brought everyone from over there to over here."
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Behold! The Obama Zombie conversion right before your very eyes!

It's really that depressing and basic. The "feel good," "be cool," "here's free stuff" so-called "dorm storming" tactics that managed to woo historic numbers of young people to vote for Obama by a 2-to-1 margin produced the kind of ephemeral electoral spike it was intended to. A year later, the excitement has vanished. Reality has set in. As the Associated Press's Martha Irvine reported, since the election the Obama "fervor has died down--noticeably." What's more, in a classic case of buyer's remorse, some Zombies show small but encouraging signs of beginning to awaken from their slavish slumber. For example, the AP also conducted a poll that showed only half of 18- to 29-year-olds approve of the way Obama has handled health care, and only 38 percent say they support the health-care plans under consideration by the Democrat Congress.
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Still, despite these encouraging tremors of life within the Obama Zombie masses, the fact remains that an entire generation, nodding to the beat of the latest YouTube Zombie clip, helped elect the most unprepared, untested, far-left radical in U.S. history. That chief Obama henchmen David Axelrod and David Plouffe understand the power of celebrity branding and the winning
tactics such as the deployment of Dave Matthews Electoral Magnets is certain. As advertising guru Chuck Brymer, president and CEO of DDB Worldwide, which is one of the largest and most influen- tial advertising agencies in the world, noted, the 2008 presiden- tial election "was the election heard round the world. Plouffe's blend of digital and traditional media was spot on and the key driver behind the successful brand story and record campaign fundraising."
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ANOTHER IMPORTANT ROLE
the Obama campaign gave Hollywood involved stoking the flames of Palin Derangement Syndrome.

Samantha Ronson, Lindsay Lohan's onetime lover, said that her fans should vote for Obama because if Palin is elected "my green card probably won't get renewed!!!"
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Lohan rhetorically asked, "Is our country so divided that the Republicans [
sic
] best hope is a narrow minded, media-obsessed homophobe?"
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Lohan also pulled Palin's female card from her: "Women have come a long way in the fight to have the choice over what we do with our bodies. . . . And its [
sic
] frightening to see that a woman in 2008 would negate all of that."
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Matt Damon said that it would be a "really scary thing" if Palin became president because McCain didn't survive his first term. A "really bad Disney movie," as he put it. "The hockey mom, you know, 'oh, I'm just a hockey mom' . . . and she's facing down President Putin. . . . It's totally absurd . . . it's a really terrifying possibility. . . ."
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Pamela Anderson told Palin to "suck it."
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Pink said, "This woman hates women," and added, "If I were
writing a letter to Sarah Palin it would be a lot of
whys
and
hows
. Who are you? Do you know? Why do you hate animals? Please point out Iraq on a map. . . ."
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Pink, Palin does love animals--the way most Americans do: killed, fried, and ready to eat.

"Palin, what's that?" erupted Russell Simmons at MTV's VMA awards. "He [McCain] went all the way to the right and got the most conservative person who knows nothing about the strug- gle of most Americans and made her the vice presidential nominee. That's amazing. Any skirt will do."
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Nothing like a sexist lecture on the plight of the common man from a rap mogul who spends his time in million-dollar mansions and zipping around the planet in his private jet.

Diddy, on one of his YouTube videos, had this message to John McCain: "You are bugging the fuck out. I don't even understand what planet you're on right now . . . Alaska? Come on man. I don't know if there are even any black people in Alaska. . . ."

Not only did the alleged lack of black people in Alaska "bug" Diddy out, but he was also concerned that "there's not even no crackheads in Alaska." Ah yes, the gold standard in the picking of a vice president. Does your state have any crackheads? No? Well then, clearly you aren't qualified. Crackheads by the dozen in your state? Straight to the front of the line for leader of the free world!

Diddy summed up his Obama Zombie logic with this stirring message: "I'm calling all youth. All Colors. All youth voters. November 4th we have to protect our future, and John McCain is bugging the fuck out, okay? . . . You need to get versed on black policies and youth policies."
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AXELROD AND PLOUFFE'S
ability to manufacture crowds led by Hollywood's brightest lights was only the beginning, though. It was the transition from concert to get-out-the-vote strategy that delivered Change We Could Believe In. Enter the Boss, Bruce Spring- steen. In the leadup to the election, Springsteen volunteered his time to star at Obama rallies in key battleground states. In Pennsylvania, Springsteen drew tens of thousands at the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. After heaping angelic levels of praise on Obama, the New Jersey rocker called President Bush a "disaster" and claimed that too many people have "lost faith" in the American dream.

"I've spent 35 years writing about America and its people and the meaning of the American promise--a promise handed down right here in this city. Our everyday citizens . . . have justifiably lost faith in its meaning."
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Springsteen's free concert at Ohio State University drew more than ten thousand young people, fresh subjects for Obama-style lobotomies. The Boss said Obama would lead an "American reclamation project" to revive the country's global image. "Despite the terrible erosion to our standing in the world," said the international-relations expert Springsteen, "we remain for many people a house of dreams. And 1000 George Bushes and 1000 Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down." With its usual savvy for well-timed and seamlessly coordinated get-out-the-vote tactics, Springsteen's appearance was designed to capitalize on a loophole that allowed Ohio residents to register and vote on the same day.
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The Boss performed a free concert at Eastern Michigan University and even a fund-raiser in Manhattan with the Piano Man, Billy Joel. The ritzy event offered another chance at some good ol' Palin bashing. In front of twenty-five hundred people, Springsteen told the
gathering, "Billy and I have rehearsed a little, but I hope you consider this more like the vice presidential debate. You have to sort of Palin-ize your expectations. We seem like we know a lot, but we don't, really." The crowd laughed on cue.
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The NBA superstar LeBron James and famed rapper Jay-Z also got in on the action, hosting free concerts in Ohio called "Last Chance for Change." Before Jay-Z began spitting out lyrics, the twenty thousand fans packed inside Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland were shown a thirty-minute Obama informercial on the JumboTron.

Once the rally kicked off, Jay-Z had this to say of B.H.O.: "Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk, and Martin walked so Obama could run. Obama is running so we all can fly, so let's fly."
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LeBron, meanwhile, spent his time bobbing and bouncing on stage, possibly in the hopes of scoping out another baby momma for him.

To be sure, Obama pays lip service to rap music being misogynistic and offensive, but in reality he is all too happy to use individuals for vote getting and fund-raising who've been rapping about the thug life and sexing multiple "bitches" and "hos."

"So what?" you may ask. "Are young voters really influenced by this kind of celebrity endorsement silliness?"