Sherman Frederick, former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, writes a column for Stephens Media.
By Sherman Frederick
The most talked about commercial of this year’s Super Bowl — Chrysler’s “It’s halftime in America” ad featuring Clint Eastwood – had the nation’s political elite suspicious.
“Hey,” both the left and right said, “is Dirty Harry talkin’ about me … or you?”
Well, if you are a straight-ticket party loyalist who puts partisanship over country, that ad is about you — and not in a good way.
When Eastwood growls about how it is halftime in America, that the game isn’t over, that we can’t be knocked out by one punch, etc., the ad’s creators hit a sweet spot in the American ethos.
“We find a way through tough times,” the ad goes, “and if we can’t find a way, then we’ll make one. All that matters now is what’s ahead, how do we come from behind, how do we come together, and how do we win.”
I don’t care what brand of coffee you drink, that’s powerful stuff. It’s almost poetry, and it favors neither political flavor.
It does, however, imply that we’re going to need every available team member in the game. It is not OK for players — rich or poor — to ditch practice, slack off in the game and still expect a ring and paycheck.
The country aches to put its collective shoulder to the wheel for a leader who can lay aside prideful party politics and do what it takes to find a way to win, even at the expense of partisanship.
As Dirty Harry says: “All that matters now is what’s ahead.” To know which way to go requires brutal honesty about where we’ve been.
Look, President Barack Obama faces a stout re-election challenge because of the efficacy of his first term. If the policies of his first three years had lifted the economic weight that holds us down, we wouldn’t be having such a vigorous halftime conversation, would we?
If I may be so bold as to use the layman’s economic term, all of the Obama years have sucked wind. President George W. Bush’s last two years did, too.
Unemployment remains horribly high. Real estate values have tanked, dragging down family savings, college plans and retirement with it.
Expensive campaign ads will try to paint a statistical feel-good picture of prosperity, but you can’t fake the realities of the American living room. You can’t pretend a mom or a dad don’t want a job anymore just because they can no longer collect an unemployment check.
Detroit isn’t fixed. If Detroit is better, is it because of the bailouts, or in spite of them? And, c’mon man, the irony of a corporate welfare recipient now owned by an Italian company paying millions for a Super Bowl ad to extol American grit is, well, surreal.
It is only topped on the crazy scale by our domestic energy policy. We say we encourage all energy sources, but we handcuff only the industries that work: coal, natural gas, nuclear and oil.
The value in “green” energy comes in pure research, which requires a small amount of federal assistance. Yet Washington doles out billions, ostensibly as fodder for future campaign ads. In the end, “green” welfare only benefits the fat cats who fund the war chests of congress critters.
Yet we’re going to keep running that failed play in the second half?
While Democrats pretend to spin straw into gold, Republicans dither about abortion, gay marriage, the electability of a Mormon and, I kid you not, whether Mitt Romney is too successful of a businessman to be president.
Really? Have we now jumped the shark as a country on the merits of capitalism?
It’s halftime in America, and I ask: Does either party really get Dirty Harry’s message?
Sherman Frederick, former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, writes a column for Stephens Media.