AFP RESPONDS TO SEPTEMBER JOBS REPORT WITH SILENCE

On the day the national unemployment rate was cut to 7.8 percent, Americans For Prosperity (AFP) on Friday released what may be one of the most attention-grabbing and unconventional ads of the 2012 election…

Wow!

The ad is titled “Dinner Table” and features a recently unemployed father trying to eat dinner with his worried wife and two kids. The only sounds that can be heard are the tinkling of utensils as the family unnervingly pokes at their food. It is a scene that has been played in real life in millions of homes across America during the Great Recession and the so-called recovery.

“Our latest ad hits you right in the gut,” said AFP Director of Marketing Mike Harinstein. “Too often, job statistics and rhetoric gloss over the gritty reality of American families who are suffering in this economy.”

After the ad gets the viewer’s attention, it makes a visceral appeal and enables the viewer to feel the pain, anxiety, fear, and heartbreak of the family of four at the dinner table before making a powerful point about the country needing to “try something different.”

Russell said the person who saw the ad told him, “the first time I saw it I felt uncomfortable. The second time I felt sick. The third I wanted to cry.”

“The President is out on the campaign trail gloating about unemployment dropping a couple tenths of a percent,” Russell said. “It’s sad that so often, the gritty reality of how American families are suffering in this economy is glossed over, or used as a campaign tool.”

In September, only 114,000 jobs were created and if the labor force was the same size (many workers have lost hope and left the labor force) as when Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 10.7%. In addition, 12.1 million Americans are unemployed with 4.8 million of those having been unemployed for more than 27 weeks.