The Obama campaign introduced a new message showing how Obama policies—interestingly, they’re calling the Affordable Care Act “Obamacare” now—have benefitted an everywoman they call “Julia.”
Good luck finding it on the website. Julia seems to have been disappeared, probably because it has drawn fire from both sides of the aisle. An example from the left is the Washington Post‘s “Fact Checker” explanation of its “misleading” “campaign trick” on Social Security. Still, it’s worthwhile to look at the campaign yourself.
Even more worth looking at, however, is Iowahawk’s send-up of the Julia messaging. My favorite line is the last one.
Luke,
I think the Julia campaign remains alive at:
http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia
For me, “do it to Julia” is a chilling phrase–perhaps the most chilling I can think of–representing both the abject surrender to evil and a horrific betrayal.
Hank, I actually linked there. What I meant by “disappeared” was that I couldn’t find a path to “Julia” from the main page. I think they kept it on the website because if they had actually sent it down the memory hole (“Julia has always been at war with Oceania”) then people would have really mocked them (“now go away or I shall taunt you a second time”). Maybe I was uncharitable in calling it a disappearing. Or maybe I’m just over 40.
I agree with your observation about “Julia.” Someone, I forget who, said OFA chose it because it’s the same for Anglos and Latinas. Possibly, but, whatever the reasoning, they sure did peg the Orwell-ometer with “Julia.”
One of my children asked me if they should read “1984” and I told them to remember the most terrible scene from “Animal Farm” (for me it’s when they take Boxer to the knacker, with Muriel running after the truck) and imagine a book that never gets any sunnier than that.