California Democrat Enlists Former “Seinfeld” Star to Mock Dana Rohrabacher

A new ad features Jason Alexander, dad jokes, and dinosaur farts

Jason AlexanderHarley Rouda for Congress

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Former Seinfeld star Jason Alexander has a new role. In a new campaign ad, he plays the moderator of a mock debate between Democratic congressional hopeful Harley Rouda and his Southern California district’s 15-term Republican incumbent, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.

The three-minute clip features an increasingly baffled-looking Alexander lobbing questions at a monitor showing news clips of Rohrabacher. On the other side of the stage, Rouda dishes out dad-joke takedowns in a noticeably stiff attempt at thespianism.

In response to a question about his position on climate change, a soundbite of Rohrabacher at a 2007 hearing plays: “Just so you know, global warming is a total fraud… We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence or who knows.” Rouda responds, “The only dinosaurs around Orange County are in theme parks. Ninety-seven percent of scientists know climate change is being driven by our overuse of fossil fuels.”

Michael McLaughlin, Rouda’s campaign manager, says that Alexander is friends with a Rouda supporter and agreed to participate in the spot for free. The “lighthearted” skit, he says, presents Rouda as the “right choice to go up against Dana Rohrabacher.”

The ad was launched online with less than two weeks before the June 5 primary election, in which Rouda will face a crowded field of 12 candidates, including Rohrabacher. 

The response to the spot, McLaughlin says, has been positive. Yet not everyone is in love with it. “My god,” wrote one commenter on YouTube, “This was one of the cringiest things I’ve ever seen. Whoever convinced you to spend even a dollar on making this should quit campaigns, and it obviously cost way more than a dollar.”

The ad cost eight grand to produce, according to McLaughlin. “We’ve been sitting on this script for months and waiting to find the right person to execute it,” he says. When asked about its unusual length, he says, “I think the Jason Alexander part is a good enough of hook to get someone committed to watch it through.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate