Croatian presidential race again proves its unpredictability. Despite being boring, uncharismatic and left for dead during the beginning of his campaign, SDP candidate Ivo Josipović in polls stubbornly sticks on first place with solid 25 %. Andrija Hebrang, at the same time, is getting the reputation of dark horse, with pundits claiming that the loyal - and pollsters-unfriendly - HDZ electorate might even get him to second round.
Hebrang's entry to second round, however, is still a long shot. The biggest battle so far appears to be for 2nd place. Here the greatest drama is caused by apparent failure of Milan Bandić to capitalise on his nation-wide campaign that actually precedeed his formal announcement for months. Polls still give him barely 15 or 14 %, with Nadan Vidošević - Clooney-like current chairman of Croatian Chamber of Commerce and - being uncomfortably close at third place, and even being second in some polls.
Failure of Bandić's campaign to make him a favourite could be perhaps explained by the poor choice of other campaign's ads that were supposed to serve. Net.hr discovered that Milan Bandić's latest campaign ad is inspired by "Morning in America", Ronald Reagan's famous 1984 campaign ad. Naturally, a little editing and YouTube were used to underline that point.
Why this ad looks like mistake? Reagan's ad in 1984 worked because he was incumbent during the period of spectacular economic recovery. The main point of Reagan's ad was to remind voters that the things in USA were good and that they shouldn't risk it by bringing incompetent Democrats back into the White House.
Bandić, on the other hand, wants to become president during the times when Croatia is still going through nasty economic times, with plenty of people losing jobs, higher taxes and living standard significantly lower than a year ago. His ad - which paints Croatia as land of milk of honey - suggests otherwise, and the voters would on subconscious level notice this huge discrepancy between Bandić's alternate universe and their own realities.
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