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Fiorina follows 'Demon Sheep' with heavenly hot air

A new ad for former HP CEO Carly Fiorina's campaign for the Senate takes the extremes of her "Demon Sheep" ad to even more exalted levels.

Chris Matyszczyk
2 min read

Words, being playful things, sometimes like to play hide and seek.

And I must say mine found a hitherto unexplored corner of the universe when I watched former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina's new ad in her campaign to be elected to the Senate.

You might remember that her first effort, the so-called "Demon Sheep" ad, resembled something that a mass orgy of acid enthusiasts might have come up with during a week-long retreat.

However, this new ad, which poetically compares California Senator Barbara Boxer to a hot air balloon, suggests that its creators have been doing nothing but feed themselves the mushrooms of an exotic forest and the movies of Terry Gilliam for several long, giggly months.

Perhaps there will be some who, when the ad's tipsy Zeus of a narrator reaches the part about Fiorina's huge successes at HP, might find their french fries refusing to co-operate with their digestive system on hearing that Fiorina was not only a massive hit at HP but that she did it "with a smile."

I must confess, though, that I am rather warming to this highly idiosyncratic style of political advertising.

You see, it's one thing to be nasty. But it's surely a far more exalted form of communication when you attempt to describe your adversary's frightful incompetence with the use of pure, heartfelt and very Californian imagination.

Who can fail to admire a politician reaching for art, when they could merely reach for banal bile? Who can fail to be moved by the use of such advanced technological special effects that create a clear and passionate distinction between a woman of the future and a woman of the past?

I am going for a hike in the forest now. Perhaps I'll pick myself some of those mushrooms too.