Halftime report

    Democrats and Republicans are both claiming that Clint Eastwood is trying to make their day.
    Eastwood’s blunt “It’s Halftime in America” Chrysler commercial during Sunday’s Super Bowl was a tribute to the working class and the city of Detroit’s resurrection more than it was an endorsement of President Obama or Mitt Romney.
    On the surface, one can see why the Democrats are claiming the ad was a somewhat subliminal endorsement of Obama, since he was the guy who saved the auto industry by not letting it go bankrupt. As opposed to Mitt Romney, who called for —- and even wrote an op-ed in the New York Times — it to go bankrupt.
    The GOP thinks Clint is secretly telling America that it’s halftime and the first half had America down, but now it’s time for the coach (played the American people, apparently) to change quarterbacks to rebound from being down and cruise to victory in the second half.
    It’s no secret what political party Eastwood belongs to —- he said he’s voted for the Republican candidate for president since Eisenhower in 1952.
    Clint is the successor to John Wayne, who was so iconic his face could be put on Mount Rushmore.
    Wayne was a staunch conservative who sometimes (unfairly) was accused of being a racist, because he was so radical right wing.
    Clint may not be as controversial conservative as was The Duke in the late 1960s, early 1970s. Clint produced and directed the biopic about Charlie Parker, for cryin’ out loud.
    He has an affinity for jazz and jazz artists. One can hardly see Romney resting at one of his mansions after a hard day of campaigning with a beer and listening to Miles Davis’ “Sketches of Spain.”
    Maybe Romney could be the star attraction in Clint movies retitled to fit the Mitt. Such as:
        1. “A Fistful of Super PAC Dollars”
        2. “For a Few Million Dollars More”
        3. “Win Any Which Way You Can”
        4. “I Was A Million Dollar Baby”
        5. “Play Mitty for Me”
    Other political heavyweights could also be in revised Eastwood movie titles:
        1. Dick Cheney and Barack Obama in “White Hunter, Black President”
        2. “Palin Rider” starring You-Know-Who
        3. Newt Gingrich in “Where Egos Dare”
        4. Bill Clinton in “The Britches of Madison County”
        5. Michelle Obama in “Midnight in the White House Garden of Good and Evil”
      Clint delivering the line that “The Roar of Our Engines will be heard again” gives one goosebumps. Like listening to a recording of Ray Charles’ rendition of “America the Beautiful.”
    It’s so believable, you just know that our detractors, after hearing that, had the same effect as him saying “Go ahead, make America’s day.”
    There is no subliminal endorsement of any one candidate here. It’s Clint’s craggy-looking puss symbolizing an older but wiser but still tough America.
    Clint is selling all cars and American ingenuity. It just so happens Chrysler came up with the spot.
    Don’t know if that would cause Clint’s character in “Gran Torino” to wax unapologetic. He was definitely a Ford guy.
    That movie took place in Detroit, and that was not by accident. Clint’s character, like the city itself, was a dinosaur on the verge of becoming extinct.
    But, as with all Hollywood endings that even take place in the Motor City, Clint’s character finds redemption and is finally able to be at peace with himself.
    Whatever wisdom and knowledge and work ethic he has left, he passes on to someone who at first would appear to be an unlikely source.
    The Gran Torino car itself is a symbol of how great America used to be, you know, when we built cars that looked like cars. Cars you could tell were designed and built here.
    We can be that way again, Clint says in that TV ad, resurrecting his “Gran Torino” character with the trademark Dirty Harry menacing “Ya” thrown in there for good measure.
    The intention was never there to endorse one candidate or another. But there’s no denying that the commercial is taking the glass-is-half-full approach that Obama is counting on.
    There is definitely no economic apocalpyse fear-mongering that Republican presidential candidates are trying to drive home.
    The days of scaring Americans with terrorism is in your backyard politics of the Bush administration are over.
    The GOP would do well not to keep up the gloom and doom that America will face if they’re not put back in power tactic.
    Danny Downer Romney and Grinch Gingrich are anachronisms.
    Meanwhile, Clint is more relevant than ever.
    Everything is going to be OK. Halftime is over, and we already have the “mo” in the second half.
    How can it go wrong? We’ve got Grandaddy Clint gunning for us.
    “Ya.”