Elections were held in Argentina on Sunday and Kirchner (the incumbant president) won in a landslide. However, mainly what interests me in Argentine politics are the ads. Here in Mendoza I have been enjoying two in particular.

This first ad features local candidates, although I saw it a dozen times before I realized it was a political ad. At first I thought they were newscasters. It makes sense. People trust newscasters. After all their job is to tell you the truth. People are less trusting of politicians. The obvious solution is to make your politicians look like the channel 3 news team. Brilliant!

Here is the second ad. De Marchi looks like he might be a newscaster too. After all he bills himself as: “Bueno. Conocido.” or in English: “Good. Known.” That strikes me as over simplifying things even for a politician.

I can not really explain why all these ads amuse me so much, but I think it comes from being completely unaware of, or interested in, the politics. This disinterested perspective leaves me looking at just the execution of the ads.

This is actually true to a lesser extent of all the advertising I see. Seeing advertising in Spanish makes me really see the words and phrases individually. Things that I have long since accepted as reasonable in English show there true silly pompousness in Spanish.¨”Nothing but the best for you, etc”.

I have been collecting some sample photos that I’ll post soon.