Recently I was watching Comedy Central and came across a political ad aired by Daniel Tosh on his show, Tosh.0.

The ad was aired on his segment, "Is it racist?" The ad aired in 2010 by Tim James while he was campaigning for Governor of Alabama. The ad made the argument that if someone wanted to live in Alabama and drive on their roadways, they needed to learn English. He continued to say, if elected, he would hold the driver's test in English only instead of the 12 languages it was currently held in. He stated that they would save money and that it just "made sense." The video received 262,078 views on YouTube. My theory is that Tim James was targeting the majority of Alabama, close minded English speaking Americans. This is the dialogue of the 33 second video. "I'm Tim James. Why do our politicians make us give driver's license exams in 12 languages? This is Alabama, we speak English. If you wanna live here, learn it. We're only giving that test in English, if I'm Governor. Maybe it's the business man in me, but we'll save money and it makes sense. Does it to you?" He emphasizes "learn it" and there is a long dramatic pause after "it makes sense" before he ends by saying "Does it to you?" He is also bowing his head as if he were thinking during the pause. During the video, he is walking from point to point in his office. The last thing you see is that he himself funded the ad. This video establishes extensive extrinsic ethos through what Tim James does not say in his video. Throughout the video, he walks around the office and keeps a steady eye on his audience. He appeals to them by saying out loud what most of them are thinking; that the majority of the state should speak English. The only difference in him saying it out loud and just someone from the population is the fact that he was running for Governor and he was on TV telling everyone that theyll save money by in essence being racist. He uses his

background as a businessman to swerve his audience to believe that he has credibility in his actions. According to www.city-data.com, a census held in 2010, the same year that Tim James ran for governor, claimed that 96.1% of Alabamas 3,989,795 population were English speaking only. He targets the majority of his audience by enforcing what they already do every day without saying it out right. His argument of saving money meant that the state would save money holding the test only in English. He states that the states roadways would be safer if only English speaking citizens would be allowed on the roads because they would be the only ones who understood what the road signs meant. According to http://www.roaddriver.co.uk/content/safety_tip/58/, the earliest road signs gave information on distance and direction and were in place in Roman times and the Middle Ages. The first international agreement on what road signs should look like was set at the International Road Congress in Rome in 1908. Traffic signs became more important with the development of automobiles and the European system we have today was agreed in the Vienna convention of 1968. While colors, shapes and logos are fairly standardized across Europe, the UK has some interesting signs. The UK's current signage system was introduced on January 1, 1965. Britain remains the only part of Europe still using non-metric distance and speed signs. Most countries place road signs, at the side of roads to pass on information to road users. Because language differences can create barriers to understanding, international signs, using symbols in place of words have been developed in Europe and adopted in most countries of the world. That research speaks for itself saying that road signs are international and are understood worldwide.

"We welcome non-English speaking people, who are legally in the U.S., to Alabama. However, if you want to drive in our states, public safety concerns dictate that you need to speak English," James said. "Political correctness may endear you to the Rachel Maddow crowd, but here in Alabama, the safety of our people comes first." I looked up the drivers test in Spanish in Alabama at http://dps.alabama.gov/Home/wfContentTableColumned.aspx?ID=30&PLH1=DLMANUALS. The section that displays road signs are exactly the same as what are on our roadways, except the words are in Spanish. The manual clearly translates Spanish to English. Next I searched for others opinions on Tim James argument. The issue of printing driver's licenses in different languages could be a legitimate issue, writes CBS News Chief Political Correspondent, the Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, "but the ethnic coding in the ad is unmistakable, especially because it's not the type of thing that voters in Alabama would care about unless someone deigned to bring it to their attention." Ambinder also points out that Alabama could lose billions of dollars in federal transportation funding if it were to stop printing the exams in different languages. He also says that Alabama voters wouldnt have thought about the drivers exam being held in different languages until James blatantly said it on TV. He also stated that they would lose billions of dollars in federal funding, not save money, like the businessman said.

Tim James pandered to anti-immigrant sentiments in order to try to advance in what was and concluded to be a very faltering political campaign.