Zabranjeni spot “Stop crvenoj Hrvatskoj” from Milan Bandi? on Vimeo.
The ad is from the recently concluded “Croatian Presidential Election”:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/world/europe/11croatia.html, where “Ivo Josipovic”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivo_Josipovic (an academic(!) and composer) defeated “Milan Bandic”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Bandic. The ad was launched by Bandic against Josipovic in an attempt to mimic the mid 1990s playbook of “Vaclav Klaus and Boris Yeltsin”:http://www.amazon.com/Regional-Economic-Voting-1990-1999-Comparative/dp/0521672554 by claiming that a victory for his opponent would return the nation to Communism. According to “Robert Mackey in the New York Times”:http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/scary-ad-fails-to-stop-croatia-going-red/?partner=rss&emc=rss, this accusation was based on the fact that Josipovic had promised to turn the map of Croatia red because the press shades areas of the country won by Josipovic’s party – the “Social Democratic Party”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_of_Croatia – in red. The claim was made all the more ironic by the fact that Bandic himself had been a member of the Social Democratic Party up until November of last year when he was expelled for – wait for it – deciding to run for president.
[Hat tip to “Andrew Therriault”:http://poll3.com/ and “The Lede – NY Times News Blog”:http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/scary-ad-fails-to-stop-croatia-going-red/?partner=rss&emc=rss]