Ever since the Jon Huntsman roll-outside started, it’s overarching theme has been… I don’t know, exactly? Advertise-structuralist? Advertise-narrative? A moebius strip of endless meta? Whatever the answer, it’s been weird.
When Huntsman’s HorizonPAC launched on the web, it went live with very small content: a donation button, an email sign-up form and a clutch of odd poems rendered on the sheet in an nearly ghost-like manner of grey-on-grey. Immediately, Huntsman has launched a fresh site — apparently for the campaign he’s locate to embark upon following week — and with it comes this bizarre video:
So, okay, here’s what we know about this. The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis reports that the ad is the employment of Fred Davis — best known for ads, like the well-known “Demon Sheep” spot done for Carly Fiorina, that tell us more about the whimsical worldview of the adman than it does about the candidate. As the ad states, it was paid for by Jon Huntsman himself, so there’s a toe in the aqua of self-funding.
And while Huntsman is a motorcycle enthusiast, that’s not him in the commercial. (As referenced in the spot, Huntsman did play the keyboards in a prog-rock band named “Wizard.”)
This fresh site, by the path, is located at www.jonhuntsmanjr.com, since www.johnhuntsman.com is currently being squatted upon by some rival that wants to remind GOP voters that Huntsman worked for and is friends with President Barack Obama.
If I had to guess, I’d affirm that there’s probably going to be some fresh small ad on this fresh Huntsman site every day leading up to his announcement. Additionally, it looks like maybe Fred Davis is entering the period of his career that’s primarily influenced by Terence Malick.
Maybe this is how Huntsman plans to govern: He will disarm Washington with an endless array of cryptic utterances.
At any rate, Jon Huntsman is the Mike Gravel of the 2012 GOP primary.
Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Since why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com — learn more about our media monitoring project here.
Glance at more: Inscrutable Things, 2012 Speculatron, Video, Jon Huntsman, Fred Davis, 2012 Election, Campaign Ads, Elections 2012, Campaign Adwatch, Mike Gravel, 2012, Jon Huntsman 2012, Politics News
DOWNLOAD: Global Agenda