Your average campaign ad involves lots of black-and-white B-roll, ominous music, and floating newspaper headlines. So this nearly four-minute illustrated reel by Lucas Gray, a veteran of the Simpsons and Family Guy animation departments, is a welcome bit of color. Using audio from a speech President Obama gave at the Associates Press Luncheon in April, “Why Obama Now” is a jaunty mix of cartoon Americans driving their Model T Fords off the assembly line onto the American Dream, graphs and charts sprouting up as the president rattles off statistics, and little bobblehead meanies providing comic relief: Bush and Cheney with a pile of gold (the Clinton surplus), Sarah Palin, Bill O’Reilly, and the rest of the conservative pundit gang. It also includes the best (though not most convincing) explanation of trickle-down economics we’ve seen yet: “If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the sparrows.”
