Unlike Jean Claude Van Damme, Republican Mike Collins cannot do a perfect split.
But the congressional hopeful from Georgia can balance between two slow moving trucks in what we will generously call a half split. He pulled the stunt in his latest Web ad, a parody of Van Damme’s commercial for Volvo.
Collins owns a trucking business, and he is running for the congressional seat currently held by Republican Rep. Paul Broun, who is vacating it to run for the open Georgia Senate seat in 2014.
His ad spoofs an ad for Volvo, in which Van Damme stands astride two driving Volvo trucks, which slowly spread farther apart as Van Damme drops into a full split between them.
But while Van Damme’s split is meant to demonstrate the “stability and precision of Volvo Dynamic Steering,” Collins’ sort of split is intended to showcase “the dangers of Obamacare.”
“What you see’s a body crafted to perfection: a pair of legs engineered to defy the laws of physics, and a mindset to master the most epic of splits,” says Van Damme.
In Collins’ ad, that becomes: “What you see is a small business man, confronted with Obamacare, a disastrous government plan that defies the laws of life, and a mindset that government knows better.”
True to the original, Enya croons “Only Time” in the background of Collins’ ad. Van Damme’s ad put the 2000 song back on the charts: it is now number 43 on the Billboard Hot 100.