Worth watching if only as fodder for a thought experiment on how a similar ad would be received if it came from the right. Light-hearted or no, it would bring about the “war on women” End Times, a days-long tribulation of fake-outrage oneupsmanship culminating in a moronic, pandering series of tweets from The One himself. Isn’t it just like a wingnut to sexualize the right to vote that women fought so hard for? Do they think women are too stupid to appreciate a straightforward pitch on the issues? Why can’t they be more sensitive, like Barack Obama?

This clip is essentially the video version of an entry from Dave Eggers’s “90 Days, 90 Reasons” site, in which poorly informed celebrities fumble for the words to express their admiration for a guy who continued most of the things they hated about Bush’s counterterrorism policy and who jerked them around for years on one of their most dearly held issues. (Gay marriage, which The One has publicly supported for less than six months, is duly mentioned here as a core reason for young liberals to prefer him to the ogrish Republican.) The most striking thing about it isn’t the lame virginity gag, which feels stale after 10 seconds (only 53 more to go!), but the precision with which they’re trying to reach their target demographic. If you know who Lena Dunham is, you know exactly who they’re after. Despite her age and short career, she’s already attained cultural-stereotype status; if your re-election depended on turning out progressive college-aged women, she’s unquestionably the spokes-hipster you’d want to liaise. So here’s her pitch to the feminists of tomorrow: Vote for Barack because he cynically lied about gay marriage to get elected four years ago and pretends to have brought the troops home from America Iraq even though it was actually Bush who was chiefly responsible for that. You want a guy who’s honest to be your “first,” wink wink, right, ladies?

Two clips for you here, one of the ad and the other via Foreign Policy of a Putin ad that ran earlier this ad. Nothing says “sexy” like a cult of personality. Exit quotation via this guy:

Unlike losing your virginity, Obama’s second term is going to hurt way more than the first#MyFirstTime — S.M (@redsteeze) October 26, 2012

Update: Ace brings it back to Big Bird, binders, and bayonets, oh my:

It underlines the essential triviality of Obama and his Government Client & Upper Upper Class White Voter agenda. There is nothing to his campaign except very small social-progressive appeals to people who are simply not affected by the economy, whether they are too poor to notice a bad economy, immunized from the economy by being a government worker, or so rich they have nothing at all to fear from a bad economy.

Update: Silly typo up top. Now corrected.