Right to Rise PAC

"Leadership" +

1:47 video from Feb, 21, 2015.

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[tension music interspersed with static SFX]

Montage of Clips (various announcers):

Radical Islam has increased four-fold in five years...

            TEXT: "The Islamic State Expands Its Empire" - NPR

...a doubling of the enemy...
...ISIS is much more organized than al-Quaeda...
...ISIS fighters are advancing...

           TEXT: "major threat to the United States" - Reuters

...brand new threats from Iran aimed squarely at the United States...

           TEXT: "Iran Blocks Inspections, Hobbling Nuclear Deal" - The Wall Street Journal

...the White House appears to be turning its back on Israel...

           TEXT: "Netanyahu admits 'profound disagreement' with Obama" - Yahoo! News

...Russia, the danger we're facing now is the renewal of the Cold War...
...there's no real strategy...
...we're facing a growing, expanding threat...the strategy that we've had is not, it's not working...

Announcer: How do we move forward?

           TEXT: How do we move forward?


[portentious music]

Bush: Everywhere you look, you see the world slipping out of control.

Under this administration...we are inconsistent and indecisive...

We have lost the trust and confidence of our friends...

           TEXT: U.S. faces skeptical allies." - CNN

We definitely no longer inspire fear in our enemies...

           TEXT: "The world is spinning into crisis" - The Huffington Post Op-Ed

This administration talks, but the words fade...

The great irony of the Obama presidency is this...someone who came to office promising greater engagement has left America less influential in the world...

The work to restore America's leadership in the world will take a concerted effort...

...the commitment of new leaders...and a sure sense that America is often at it's best when tested...

I believe fundamentally weakness invites war...strength encourages peace.  Free people, free markets, free ideas...implemented faithfully will set a powerful example...of what's possible to the rest of the world.

           TEXT: "Jeb Bush calls for expanding U.S. influence abroad" - The Wall Street Journal

Others should want America as a friend...

           TEXT: "Bush promised a resurgent America" - The Associated Press

There should be comfort, no success and no future standing against the United States...

Nothing and no one can replace strong American leadership.



Notes: The video starts with a 30-second montage of alarming news clips and text/headlines.  The rest of the video is snippets of Bush's recent foreign policy speech, but this section is really chopped up--the longest clip with audio and video is probably about seven seconds; the video keeps switching to a different cut or text.


Observations: This video seems very uneffective.  The opening montage conveys the threat well enough, but the editing of clips from Bush's speech reduces it almost to mush.  Constantly switching shots are strung together in a distracting way, and this approach does not serve to convey strength or the existence of a serious policy foundation.  A couple of longer quotes using just one or two shots would likely have had more punch.  Candidates complain when the news media reduce their speeches to sound bites; yet here is a pre-campaign doing that job.  The music is also a bit much.