Over the weekend, city council candidate Jessie Israel posted a campaign video on youtube called “1987 Redux (4 Seattle)” where, like INXS before her (and Bob Dylan before them), Israel flips through a series of cue cards while music plays in the background.

Her lyrics? The list of her endorsements from prominent local advocacy groups. Her music? An original song by a friend of Israel’s named Nolan Love which has sort of an electro-INXS-with-a-dash-of-Rick-Springfield feel to it.

Plenty of candidates have endorsements and youtube videos, but this one is worth noting for its originality. Go ahead, try and watch some of the other city council candidate videos (only Forch, Rosencrantz, Kaplan, and Ginsburg have even made them) and try to pay attention for more than thirty seconds. Good luck. They are all little more than two-minute clips of candidates staring into the camera and talking about themselves, mixed in with the standard menu of political cliches.

Sitting on a porch? Check. Newspaper clippings? Check. Shots of the Seattle skyline? Check. Childhood photos? Check.

Israel’s video, on the other hand, is one of the first examples of a something that actually tries to break the mold.

29 replies on “Israel Channels INXS, Dylan”

  1. Right on, Jessie. Great video. And thank GOD someone finally brought a little creativity to the already tired genre of low-cost campaign vids. Beautifully shot, and a kickin’ soundtrack to boot. All you Bob Dylan fans out there, get off your butts and give Nick Licata the heave-ho. It’s time for Jessie’s World!

  2. Does the Council really need someone plagerizing other peoples ideas? I think, generation-wise, Nick has a lock on the Dylan crowd. Endorsements by themselves have never carried a candidate. They are a tie-breaker when all other things are equal.

  3. What breath of fresh air! It certainly sets her apart from the gazillion candidates running. I like the nod to ’80s rock and dylan. She gets points for cleverness.

    @7 Really? Nick Licata’s supporters are going after her for white pants and her fat ass? Wow. Classy.

  4. wow, commenters… seriously? weight jokes? That’s gotta be the 405 reprezenting or a couple of Belltown choches… Their mid-90’s 3 Series must have broken down on the way to get their tips frosted. Don’t worry angry ones, I’m sure there is a $10 drink special at Amber so you can show off your new shiny stripey shirt. Just because you dumped the pooka shell necklace in order to not go full retard, doesn’t mean the Axe still does not clearly alert us to your arrival. Lucky for us, Axe has been proven to cause infertility. Did I nail it? Freaky eh?

  5. seriously? You nailed it! or them (did you mean 425?) But don’t worry they wouldn’t know the difference between a ballot and a menu from the latest hip restaurant’s tapas menu. They don’t vote.

  6. Ah shitballs! that’s lame of me to miss the call sign. “405”, “425” it’s all mixed up in my mind due to vivid dreams of living on the Eastside, and by vivid, I mean beige.

  7. @6, @9
    Israel works for KC Parks dept – it’s not littering because she’ll make one of her employees pick it up after her.
    That’s so hip – too cool to care.

  8. It’s distracting how she has to keep pausing and looking to the cue cards on the side to know what to do next:

    ‘throw down a card’

    ‘throw down another card’

    ‘throw down another card’….

  9. @kingstPR – are you really dumb enough to be posting to the slog regarding a political campaign on your work computer using an alias that references a government job?

  10. Maybe they could photoshop a head on top of her ass when she walks off at the end and it would look like her midget assistant was following her…

  11. I say look at Nick Licata’s insert in the Seattle Times last Sunday. blahblahblahblah..excessive descriptives (and I would assume cost) to make us understand how many people..dead or alive..have valued and now endorse Licata; however Israel..while being funny and original.. got the same point across. Look at her other ad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msric5X_P…

  12. If she wore big fluffy mittens and held her hands down over her hips and never turned sideways you might not notice her huge ass as much.
    but yeah, the white pants gotta go…

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