Frustrated by an inability to get people's attention, one Mexican Congressional candidate took matters into her own hands. And by "matters," I mean "breasts." And by "into her own hands," I mean "up on a series of billboards."
Natalia Juarez is a 34-year-old philosophy professor running for Congress as a member of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, a leftist group that holds a minority number of seats in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies and Senate. But Juarez's campaign wasn't taking off as quickly as she'd hoped, and so she opted for an advertising technique that never fails to turn heads — boobies.
Juarez's first billboard was erected in the conservative city of Guadalajara and features the candidate and six other female PDR members naked from the waist up, covering their breasts with their right hands, and raising their left fists. Another billboard features pantsless women with their lady parts obscured by a translucent yellow strip. The billboards bear slogans like "It's better for one thousand of us to take a step forward than for one leader to take one thousand steps for us." and "I dare you to build a new project for a nation with no prejudices." Also, hey, everyone, here are some breasts.
And this is the point where Rick Santorum breaks out into hives.
Reaction, unsurprisingly, has been mixed. People have criticized Juarez for overusing her feminine wiles to get attention, they've accused her of being dumb, unqualified, and gimmicky. And conservative voters are totally not into Juarez's techniques.
Juarez says she isn't worried about pissing conservatives off. She told CNN, "Conservative people are never going to vote for me, never! Even if I dressed as a nun and carried a rosary and said that my party was going to give away Bibles and rosaries, they wouldn't. Conservatives are never going to vote for me." She says that if voters are shocked by this round of ads, they should hang onto their hats for what's coming.
I say I'd love to see American pols follow Natalie Juarez's pander-free example, but I don't think anyone wants to see Mitch McConnell toplessly pleading for small government or a pantsless Dick Dubin making the case for more clean energy.
[CNN]