Cave Spring graduate steering Brian for president bandwagon
NEW YORK - The years of teenage rebellion are normally something parents dread. For John and Dora Cunningham of Roanoke County rebellion from their son, Eric, came in a more unexpected form.
“Both of my parents are immigrants (from Mexico and Ireland) and as non-citizens they can’t vote and didn’t have an interest in doing so. So in high school, I quickly developed a passion for politics, as the lamest form of teenage rebellion” explained Cunningham recently as to what spurred on his interest in politics.
The Full Ginsberg members (l-r) Marc Georges, Brendan Collins, Mike Winton, Eric Cunningham, Zara Findlay-Shirras, and Jared Bloom. - Photo by Ari Scott
Cunningham is a founding member and head writer of the New York based group, The Full Ginsberg. Formed in 2008 the group makes comedy based political videos but has recently gained attention for their “Brian Williams for President” campaign.
“A few months ago, we were passing around this video Brian Williams had made mocking the New York Times’ obsession with Brooklyn. That led to emailing out more clips of him on 30 Rock, him on SNL, and Jimmy Fallon. All super funny and all super great. As we roped in more people on this email list, we realized that literally EVERYONE loves Brian Williams. So we asked, then shouldn’t he be president? And we decided that yes: yes he should” explained Cunningham as to what prompted the campaign.
Cunningham is a 2002 Cave Spring High School graduate. After graduating, he attended UVA to study political science but got steered into comedy after helping with Larry Sabato’s Center for Politics’ “National Symposium on Political Humor” during his first year. That led to organizing more comedy shows and then writing his own humor column in the Cavalier Daily.
When he graduated in 2006, he headed to New York because “even though Washington has all the politicians, New York has The Daily Show, SNL and Colbert. Not to mention all the nightly newscasts and cable channels, especially Nightly News.” In New York he worked on VH1′s Best Week Ever, studied sketch at the UCB Theatre and then helped found The Full Ginsburg.
While politically based comedy is naturally susceptible to starting from a negative perspective, focusing on tearing something down or being mad about someone you disagree with, The Full Ginsberg has taken a determinedly different approach. “We’ve found that it’s a lot more fun to do when you start with having fun with the news first. For example, the Brian Williams campaign is all about why Brian Williams is such a great guy, not why anyone else running is bad” explained Cunningham about their style of political comedy.
So, how’s the campaign going? Since they didn’t know “BriWi,” they knew they’d have to run the campaign for him. That led to creating the campaign ads, posters, buttons, pins and a website where people could sign up and join The Cause. “The response was really overwhelming — people came out of the woodworks to support the campaign and I spent a lot of time mailing pins to folks across the country” said Cunningham.
“The campaign culminated with a rally at the PIT theater in New York where we made the case for a BriWi presidency to his supporters. NBC News sent a crew to cover the event, so even though Brian couldn’t make it (scheduling issues), I’d like to imagine that he watched the show from some secret NBC screening room that only he and Alec Baldwin know about.” Brian Williams did say that he was “flattered” by our campaign and joked that the 2012 race already had too many people overly-concerned with their hair, so he’d be sitting this one out.
Far from disappointed though, Cunningham and the other members of The Full Ginsberg are determined. “Fortunately, the BriWi campaign is patient. If not 2012, then maybe 2016, or 2020. Or 2024 or 2028 even. America can wait.”
Story by Carrie E. Cox
