As we await the outcome of the 2012 election, let’s take a walk down memory lane to see what garnered interest and sarcasm this election season. In other words, let’s have some fun.
In no particular order, here are some of the more memorable memes.
- Dog – What started out as the Obama campaign ridiculing Mitt Romney for the story about how Mitt put the family dog in a carrier on his car roof during a road trip soon turned into the Obama ate Dog meme. It turned out that in Obama’s book, Dreams from My Father, he wrote about eating dog meat. Dog on car roof suddenly didn’t seem as bad as dog for dinner, oops.
- “The Life of Julia” – The Obama/Biden campaign launched a slideshow on their website to show how the government basically holds “Julia’s” hand throughout her life. Evidently Julia cannot take care of herself and must rely on a government “sugar daddy” to provide for her. Where were the feminists yelling about paternalism?
- War on Women – The Democrats launched this meme early and tagged many aspects to portray Republicans as heartless women-haters: Sandra Fluke, of the 30-year-old Georgetown law student demanding free birth control fame; repealing ObamaCare hurting women; opposing abortion on demand means being anti-women; promoting (however, briefly before it was removed from the website) the highly offensive Obama/Biden campaign e-card “vote your lady parts” and myriad other examples. Evidently conservative pro-life women hate women, natch.
- “You Didn’t Build That” – While making a campaign speech President Obama dissed business owners nationwide by saying they had nothing to do with building a successful business. Forget the money they risked, the long hours, the sacrifices they made; those things are meaningless. Message received Mr. President – big government is responsible for their success.
- Eastwooding or Empty Chair – Clint Eastwood addressed the Republican National Convention in August and for his entire speech he talked to an empty chair to symbolize Obama’s failure to lead. This spawned pictures of empty chairs nationwide on “empty chair day.”
- Big Bird and Binders – The three Presidential debates launched many new memes, but these three were the most popular. President Obama’s team seized on Mitt Romney’s plan to cut the subsidy to PBS, employer of Big Bird, and said Romney was firing Big Bird. Fun fact: the actor who plays Big Bird makes over $314,000 a year (horrors, he is not part of the 99 percent meme). During one debate Mitt Romney mentioned the binders of women’s resumes compiled by his transition team as Governor to help him to find the most qualified women for positions in his administration. He said “binders full of women” which was portrayed as a derogatory comment to women. (Are they adding hiring women to the “war on women” meme?) Anyone watching the debate knew what Romney meant but binder pictures abound on social media.
There are so many more to find out there. Just Google: 47 percent; Joe Biden (so many, so little bandwidth); Romnesia; and bayonets to start and branch out from there.