With a perfectly corny, safely politically neutral ad about politics, undecided voter Ken Bone is still squeezing out the last drops of internet fame.
Bone, in case you forgot, was the man who shot to internet celeb status during the second presidential debate last fall. Dressed in a red zip-up cardigan, he asked a friendly middle-of-the-road question about energy policy amid a frankly nasty political climate. That was enough for him to be quickly embraced as the much-needed "can't we all just get along" meme of the moment.
His fleeting fame also came with some less-than-savory discoveries about his internet past. Nonetheless, his image and a Twitter following of 224,000 have managed to persist.
And through it all, he's still managed to never actually take a stand in politics, while continuing to talk all about politics. On Tuesday, a political software company called Victory Holdings announced Bone would be joining its team as "chief people officer."
As CPO @VictoryHoldings I want to promote good people running for office. This means reaching out to people with ideas from both sides.
— Ken Bone (@kenbone18) February 21, 2017
And it gave us this news with a politically impartial ad about people fighting "big money politicians."
The clip, "Enough is Enough," starts off with dramatic, distorted images of congressional hearings on C-Span and the mass protests that have happened since Donald Trump took office. Then Bone, sitting in front of the televised chaos, says, "Enough is enough." The whole video flips to patriotism-inducing images of vast cornfields, American flags, a rocket ship blasting into space, factory workers, and of course, Bone greeting casually dressed "everyday Americans."
The ad doesn't have a real political message or take any stance, all the while slamming "career politicians."
"This isn't a fight between Democrats and Republicans," Bone says in the voiceover. "This is people versus big money politicians."
Victory Holdings has two products for fighting "special interests," which are basically for people who want to become politicians themselves. One is an app called DonorDex that helps people connect with donors according to their political party and what electoral race they're running in. Meanwhile, Landslyde Digital is a digital ad brokerage that helps political candidates market themselves to voters through "calculated ad placement and messaging."
Landslyde's "How it Works" section explains the process, and it looks a lot like the marketing that so-called "career politicians" do. The company just promises it will help you — the up-and-coming candidate — do it more "cost efficiently."
As a man who rose to fame as the beloved "undecided voter," it looks like Bone — even as he makes money in the world of politics — is still not saying how he feels about politics.
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