Joe Biden famously plagiarised a speech by Kinnock, now Mitt Romney has stolen a poster from Thatcher. The Republican frontrunner’s latest campaign ad, entitled “Obama Isn’t Working”, is a near replica of the classic “Labour Isn’t Working” poster from the 1979 Conservative campaign.
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In fairness to the Romney campaign, they acknowledge their debt to Thatcher in a passage on their website:
In 1978, Saatchi and Saatchi, then an up-and-coming advertising agency hired by the British Conservative Party and their campaign for Margaret Thatcher, created an historic political poster depicting the negative economic conditions and the government’s failed attempts to correct that path. Labeled the poster of the century by the magazine Campaign, the image pointed to Britain’s economic climate of rising unemployment, rising inflation, and a large and growing national debt. Those conditions and the public discontent throughout the country during that election and the parallels that Americans face today cannot be ignored. With 9.1% unemployed, record deficits, a soaring national debt, and millions of struggling families, one thing is clear — Obama isn’t working, either.
Let’s hope that Obama succeeds where Sunny Jim failed.
Hat-tip: Slate.