Meatballs (advertisement)
Meatballs (also known as Meatball and For Spanish Press 1) was a political commercial aired during the 2000 United States presidential campaign in support of Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan. The commercial, which was created by Houston-based agency Love Advertising, depicts a white man choking on a meatball while attempting to dial 9-1-1, but keeling over before the automated menu reaches the option for English. The ad highlighted Buchanan's support for making English the official language of the United States and his opposition to immigration policies of the time. Some analyses questioned the accuracy of the ad's claim that Buchanan's opponents were "writing off English for good". The ad aired in 22 states, with an emphasis by the campaign on border states like California and Arizona. The commercial drew criticism from several political figures and media outlets for its message, which some considered racist and xenophobic. Some critics praised the ad's humor and execution. The ad has been criticized in retrospect. Background In the 2000 United States presidential election, former Republican Pat Buchanan sought, and ultimately received, the nomination of Ross Perot’s Reform Party. Buchanan’s campaign themes included opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement, illegal immigration, and abortion rights. Because of the Reform Party’s showing in the 1996 presidential election, with Perot garnering eight percent of the national popular vote, the party qualified for matching federal campaign funds in 2000. Following a court ruling, Buchanan was awarded $12.6 million in such funds. A stated goal of the campaign was to again attain at least five percent of the national popular vote, so that the Reform Party would maintain its eligibility for matching funds in the 2004 election. During his campaign, Buchanan and his running-mate, educator and activist Ezola Foster, both frequently called for a reduction in the number of immigrants allowed into America each year, as well as increased assimilation (in both language and culture) of those who enter the country. In a May 2000 interview with National Public Radio, Buchanan claimed that immigration at then current rates was "rapidly changing the nature of the entire country; we speak 300 languages", while in August of that year, his campaign website called for a reduction of legal immigrants to between 250,000 and 300,000 annually, as well as for an implementation of an assimilation program to teach them the English language as well as American customs and history. Foster, meanwhile, had supported California's Proposition 187 in 1994, which sought to deny public services to illegal immigrants, and in her acceptance speech as Buchanan's running-mate in August, urged American immigration policy to "stop being stupid", claiming that illegal immigration had lowered educational quality at the school where she had taught. That month, President Bill Clinton also signed Executive Order 13166, ordering federal agencies to work to accommodate non-English-speaking citizens; the move was regarded as an inspiration for what would become Buchanan's first general-election commercial. For their first television commercial of the general election campaign, funded partly by the federal matching funds,