Peter Berg has accused Mitt Romney of copying his campaign slogan ‘Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose’ from Friday Night Lights and has told the presidential candidate, ‘Please come up with your own campaign slogan.’
He Friday Night Lights filmmaker said that Romney stole the slogan from one of the sports drama series, but contended that the meaning of the campaign motto was different from the line on the TV series.
In his letter, he wrote, “Governor Romney: “I created the TV show Friday Night Lights and came up with the phrase “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose”. I was not thrilled when I saw that you have plagiarized this expression to support your campaign by using it on posters, your Facebook page and as part of your stump speeches. Your politics and campaign are clearly not aligned with the themes we portrayed in our series. The only relevant comparison that I see between your campaign and Friday Night Lights is in the character of Buddy Garrity – who turned his back on American car manufacturers selling imported cars from Japan.” He also said that “We are not in any way affiliated with you or your campaign. Please come up with your own campaign slogan.”
However, Barack Obama also used the similar phrase in his slogan stating, “Clear eyes, full hearts,” written in one of his Tumblr posts last July but this has not been brought up within this latest accusation to Romney.
While Berg seems upset that Romney has affiliated himself with one of his original TV lines, there seems to be no fuss about Obama performing a similar action. This can suggest something about Berg’s political standing.
It isn’t plagerism when (even if you made it up for a tv series) something becomes a well known ‘slogan’ or ‘phrase’…for pete’s sake…it becomes part of the common vocabulary.
(And… if you give credit to the series which Romney graciously does.)
Peter Berg…just doesn’t like Romney’s politics…based on the myths, lies and spin that the Democratic political machine puts out there. If he actually knew the facts and character of Mitt Romney…he’d be downright flattered.