Pajama Boy Goes Galt

In a comment on Bette Noir's great Rumproast post on GOP voter outreach, reader SoVeryConfused had a request:


Request commentary on the GOP outreach to Millennials, recently performed by the hipster dude in the tortoise-shell glasses and striped shirt, last seen putting 87 octane gas into a Audi A4.


Not to step on Bette's toes, but I think I can field this one...

For all of the public mockery of "Pajama Boy", the RNC, led by Reince Priebus, was privately alarmed at the GOP's glaring "Pajama Boy gap". In a mere three months, Reince unveiled an improved simulacrum of the original Pajama Boy. Instead of the effete footie pajamas sported by the Obamacare poster boy, the Republican ambassador to the hipsters has been butchified 10% with the addition of a cool "Fonzie meets Smee" wardrobe and the addition of some badass hair gel. Gone is the wussy cocoa mug... the new hipsterlicious volcano of machismo has his hands on a strategically placed gas nozzle... Iggy Pop, you've been knocked off of your eroticization of petrol pump pedestal. I bet Pajama Boy goes to the full service lane and has some other guy do the pumping, if you know what I mean and I think that you do.

The RNC was so enamored of their hipster guy that they put him in a second video, which is sure to be a hit with millennials:





He believes in an energy policy using a wide array of sources, including Republican favorite "Bqhatevwr". There are a couple of missteps in the ad if it is truly aimed at millennials- car ownership tends to be a low priority among this age cohort, so gasoline prices are not all that important to them. Even more of a gaffe is the GOPster's complaint about the price of home heating oil... saddled with crippling debt and bad job prospects (neither of which is being helped by the GOP congresscritters) home ownership is a currently unattainable dream for most millennials. Seeing this bespectacled pitchman blithely mention his home heating cost, many millennials will see this ad as a cruel joke.

The really odd thing about these ads is that, just as "Pajama Boy" was an Organizing for Action employee and not an actor, the GOP answer to "Pajama Boy" is PR flack who works for the Republican Party. In both cases, these individuals, widely assumed to be model/actor types, are true believers (or reasonable facsimiles thereof). The parallels between the two are remarkable- we have the contrast between a hipster and a Bizarro-hipster.

As a funny aside, and an example of the GOP scoring an "own goal", a musician photographed with the GOP hipster after an interview has publicly disavowed any friendship. Nice hipster you've got there, GOP! For more hilarity, this Fark thread has some great material.

Now, for the crowning glory, the Youtube videos of these ads do not have comments disabled as of this writing. If that's the sort of savvy that the GOP is bringing to their youth outreach, this is going to be one hell of a year!

Post title shamelessly stolen from JPrestonian, a man with two extraordinarily beautiful cats. Cross-posted at Rumproast.