The car company Chrysler Group LLC took out a two minute ad during the Super Bowl this Sunday which featured Clint Eastwood. During the ad Eastwood said "it was halftime in America," and that although they almost lost it all, "We all pulled together, and now Motor City is fighting again."

The Clint Eastwood Super Bowl ad can be seen below.

Republicans are calling this ad essentially an Obama re-election ad. Republican strategist Karl Rove called the ad a way for grateful execs to say thanks for the bailouts that saved them from bankruptcy in 2009. A great article highlighting these criticisms along with the response from Chrysler’s CEO Sergio Marchionne can be found here. 

It's quite something that politics seems to permeate everything. If anything is done that makes America look remotely more improved under Obama, Republicans cry about it. The fact of the matter is that the auto industry was on the brink of disaster when Obama took office and now it is recovering. The ad is factually correct, albeit an inconvenient fact if you’re trying to tear the president down at every second of every day. This reminds me of the time that right-wingers, notably Fox News contributors, complained that the movie "WALL-E" was movie meant to brainwash kids with liberal ideology. You know, it could be a movie planted into the Hollywood mainstream by leftist radicals to instill terrible eco-friendly values in our children. Or it could just be a kids movie.

The Clint Eastwood Super Bowl ad could be a secret pat on the back of Obama from Chrysler executives in a sort of evil minion type way, or it could just be a damn car ad that one shouldn't read into too much.

If you want an insightful analysis of what Detroit has been through in the past few years, check out this article written in The Detroit News here. 

I thought the ad was great. Above all it made me want to see Chrysler do well (which makes it an advertising success). Clint Eastwood was the perfect narrator to depict a gritty, resilient city like Detroit. Even though our automakers of Detroit still aren’t out of the woods yet as far as financial success is concerned, we are halfway there. It’s halftime America. Clint Eastwood is such a badass.

 

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