They need to stop doing disservice to our term because it must be EARNED! >-(
Well, you know. I'll go back to my treadmill now...
Posted on 11/09/2006 9:12:02 AM PST by meg88
Thursday, 11/09/06 'Call me' ad actress says 'it was just a job'
The bare-shouldered blonde whose appearance in a political ad helped sink Democrat Harold Ford Jr. says she isn't very political, and didn't know who "Harold" was when she said, "Call me."
"I don't involve myself in politics. I stick to my job," said Johanna Goldsmith, an Austin, Texas, actress. "For me, it was just a job like any other."
Goldsmith's ad in the U.S. Senate race in Tennessee touched off a national political and racial firestorm.
She had promised to keep quiet until after the election, and she spoke to The Tennessean by telephone Wednesday.
Although the ad has been criticized for playing into racial fears of a black man dating a white woman, Goldsmith said she saw no such message. Goldsmith, who has Mexican heritage, said she has “dated all nationalities” and didn’t see the ad as racist.
Tammy Thompson, a Texas radio personality who also appeared in the ad, agreed.
"I live with undertones of racism all the time," said Thompson, who is African-American. "But I also have to think of it as, 'Everything is not racism.' We as black people have a tendency to be a little sensitive because of what our ancestors went through and what we continue to go through today."
Thompson said the actors didn't have a script and were thrown lines to repeat as they stood in front of the camera. They shot Oct. 15 in Dallas and a week later the ad aired.
In the commercial, Goldsmith plays a flirtatious blond who says she met Ford at a Playboy party — a reference to his attendance at a Playboy-sponsored Super Bowl party in Jacksonville, Fla., last year. The ad, filmed in a man-on-the-street-style, featured other questionable characters who said they backed Ford.
Some pundits and politicians speculated that the ad, paid for by the Republican National Committee, helped put Republican Bob Corker over the top.
The first poll — a Bloomberg survey — that showed Corker leading by more than a percentage point was conducted in the days just after the "call me" ad aired, and Ford was never consistently ahead in the polls again.
"It clearly had an effect. After the ad ran, that's when the polls started changing — Corker for the better and Ford for the worse," said David Bositis, senior political analyst at the Joint Center of Political and Economic Studies, a nonprofit black think tank.
The fact that 30 short seconds caused such an uproar — and landed Goldsmith's picture all over prime-time television news channels and the front page of major print publications such as Time magazine and The New York Times — surprised her, she said.
A Spanish translator for a Texas doctors association, Goldsmith said, “I don’t just play the bimbos, I play the young mom, too.
“I love children and comedy.”
As the spot was criticized as tacky and latently racist, calls started pouring in alerting Goldsmith to her newfound fame, she said. A friend from Australia even called to tell her she'd made the cover of a major magazine in Melbourne.
Two days after the election, Goldsmith is trying to catch up on the back-and-forth over the ad. She recorded some of the news broadcasts and plans to watch them this weekend.
Linda McAlister, Goldsmith's agent, said people of all political hues signed on to the commercial, produced by Dallas-based company Scott Howell & Co., because the script was funny. McAlister said she was surprised people took the ad so seriously.
"That's what's been so hilarious about the whole thing," she said. "We've been looking at each other like, 'You are good. You sold it!' "
I thought that part of the ad was hilarious too!
They need to stop doing disservice to our term because it must be EARNED! >-(
Well, you know. I'll go back to my treadmill now...
Interesting that the Republicans think it's OK for African American men to date Mexican girls, but Democrats don't.
I am just curious how was the ad offensive to you?
I am just curious how was the ad offensive to you?
Some Freepers speculate that the Washington Post's fortnight long fixation on "macacaa," whatever that is, not paid for by the Democratic National Committee, put Democrat Webb over the top - and thereby put the Democratic Party over the top in the U.S. Senate. Either that should be illegal or - the truth is - no law should favor establishment journalism over any other faction of we-the-people. That is, McCain-Feingold is unconstitutional root and branch.
Ford is young and at least perceived as attractive; to toss out an implication that as such that he automatically is interested in stepping out on his wife and family, and to imply as much in a commercial is, in my estimation, offensive. And to me, at least, race is NOT the issue here. It is a political ad that got too personal. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure his marriage is strong enough to endure that type of ad. But given the nastiness of the ads this year in general (there was one here in Georgia for a supreme court candidate, where one candidate insisted the other was ordered by a court never to have contact with his sister after allegedly trying to kill his mother), I suppose the Ford ad was one of the milder ones.
Then, again, given the number of political ads and campaigns that got really personal and nasty this year, I'm not surprised it went this way.
It was by far the best ad out there, it was smart and humorous. Why the Republicans didn't run more ads like this one is beyond me. It made the republican candidate appear cool.
I didn't think Ford was married, I thought he was single.
I could be mistaken.
Well I could be too. :) But I seem to remember Rush saying that he is young, single and good looking so what was the problem with him mingling with playboy bunnies. The problem was he lied and said he didn't do it, and that was why they used that in the ad.
I'm afraid I'm having trouble understanding why you were offended as well.
If he is single, then your stated objection doesn't apply.
If he is married, then he's a married man who went and hung out at a Playboy party, presumably without his wife. I don't think pointing that out equals a presumption that he would "automatically" step out on his wife just because he's "young and attractive". I think it equals a presumption that he would "automatically" be interested in stepping out on his wife and family because he, well, went to a Playboy party as a married man. I don't think any of that premise rests simply on him being "young and perceived attractive".
Qwinn
I'd hit it. :)
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Wow. She's a cutie. Are you suuuure she wants you????
She's an "actress", therefore at least nutty and possible even crazy. So yes, I'm sure she wants me.
No mention of a wife: Congressman Harold Ford
Regards, Ivan
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