>Barack the Builder?

British radio comedy The Now Show wickedly points out that Barack Obama’s campaign slogan (‘Yes, we can’) is basically the same as the theme for children’s TV favourite Bob The Builder. Various right-wing American bloggers have also noticed this and there are quite a few amateurish medleys of Bob and Obama on You Tube . But isn’t that exactly what you’d expect? Both politicians of a vaguely centrist persuasion and children’s TV producers share a need to come up with nice simple, feelgood messages, which are catchy easy to understand and have some basic moral points that pretty much no one could disagree with. Frankly, I’m surprised spin doctors and political PR people have mined the children’s channels more extensively for more decent campaign slogans. My tip for any who might be reading ‘Teamwork – Do It Together’, one of the bouncing disco numbers from the frenetic pre-schoolers’ show LazyTown, Iceland’s greatest export. And, yes, Obama definitely gets my vote.