Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is employing a new campaign slogan that is oddly reminiscent of one used by fictional President Selina Meyer on “Veep.”
Turnbull’s slogan, “continuity with change,” is only slightly different than the one Meyer used during her re-election bid in the HBO comedy’s fourth season, “continuity and change.”
The similarity between the two slogans did not escape the Veep writing team and cast.
“It did make me laugh a lot when I saw that the Australian PM’s people had been on the same mental journey and come up with the same meaningless phrase,” Simon Blackwell, “Veep’s writer and executive producer, told Guardian Australia.
Blackwell said he was alerted to this news by fellow producer Frank Rich via Twitter.
“Continuity with Change” — but close enough! @VeepHBO @Aiannucci @simonblackwell @OfficialJLD https://t.co/xqHeG6WXPS
— Frank Rich (@frankrichny) March 22, 2016
He then explained the origin of Meyer’s slogan and why it worked so well in the context of Veep, but maybe not so much for a real politician.
“We needed it to be hollow and oxymoronic, to say absolutely nothing but seem to have depth and meaning,” Blackwell said. “It couldn’t be too daft though — it had to be funny but still believable.
“Selina wants to be all things to all people — she wants to assure the American public that government is carrying on as normal after the president has stepped down, that there is no crisis, but she also wants to seem fresh and forward-looking,” he concluded.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who plays Meyer, tweeted out the news with the message: “I am dumbstruck.”
@OfficialJLD @VeepHBO So are we in Australia! #awkward
— Queensland Greens (@QldGreens) March 22, 2016
Her co-star Timothy Simons went on Twitter to thank “the truly clueless US / World politicians providing us with so much free publicity.”
Other political shows have poked fun at Turnbull in the past. A March 20 tweet from Turnbull in which he said “the time for game playing is over” drew the attention of “House of Cards,” a Netflix show about Frank Underwood’s rise from Congress to the presidency through intimidation, corruption and murder.
.@TurnbullMalcolm I admire your methodology, Prime Minister. If you don’t like how the table is set, turn over the table.
— House of Cards (@HouseofCards) March 21, 2016
Turnbull has been questioned about his similarities to the fictional Underwood in the past, even being forced to clarify last year that the two have nothing in common “other than we both use a rowing machine.”
