• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, February 13, 2012

All the pre-Super Bowl hype this year was about how all the pre-game hype for Chrysler’s two-minute Eminem spot last year was leading marketers to leak their spots early on YouTube and social media. But the big story this year really turns out to be about a spot that was not seen until halftime of the game itself.

Again, it’s Chrysler.

Things are turning around at the Detroit automaker since Fiat and CEO Sergio Marchionne took the wheel –- a sentiment driven home by the Clint Eastwood pep talk, "Halftime in America," that has managed to stay in the headlines this past week as it has come under both fire and praise.

Some Republicans, starting with Karl Rove, accused the spot of being “pro Obama” by portraying the automaker’s federal bailout in a positive light. “Republicans Hear a Political Note in Chrysler Ad” by the Los Angeles Times’ James Rainey is one of 2,384 related articles turned up in a Google search this morning.

But the GOP was not a united front in the attack. Newt Gingrich, for one, said he “liked the tone” of the ad at a campaign stop in Cleveland, Peter Grier reports in the Christian Science Monitor. “The world has counted us down before and we’re just regrouping,” he said. And Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, called the criticism “absolutely silly,” Tom Skubick reports on MLive.com.

“Nearly 5 million had watched the video by the end of the day Tuesday on YouTube, with 15 times more people ‘liking’ it than disliking it,” Rainey reported.

On the other side of the story, John Hrabe writes in Huffington Post that the spot is “selling us the playbook of the Greatest Generation” and that it’s “dead wrong.” It’s “a playbook of hard work and perseverance. Obedient factory workers, who don't think different, they just build bigger cars, better planes or faster widgets….” You get the picture.

In a statement, Eastwood told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, “I just want to say that the spin stops with you guys, that there’s no spin in that ad. Of that I’m certain. I am certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama. It was meant to be a message just about job growth and the spirit of America.”

Chrysler CMO Olivier Francois, who last week spoke withAd Age’s Stephen Williams about the making of the ad, said he had personally approached Eastwood about making the commercial, which he prefers to call a “video.”

“[Eastwood is] maybe the wisest guy I've ever met; he feels deeply in everything he says,” Francois said.” I had no other idea [for the spot] than Mr. Eastwood. It was totally designed around him, he's the only man that, when he talks, you listen and you believe ... because he's an American icon, and he's in his 80s and he hasn't got anything to prove.”

“Saturday Night Live” parodied the commercial, the political flap swirling around it, Eastwood himself and a few other scattershot targets in three mock spots over the weekend.

Detroit Free Press columnist Tom Walsh writes about Marchionne’s involvement with United Way for Southeastern Michigan this morning, as well as what he sees as Chrysler’s commitment to helping both the local and global economies get back on their feet in a speech at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business recently.

“Was Clint trying to make political points in the Super Bowl ad, any more than Marchionne was in exhorting Chrysler managers to back United Way efforts or U-M students to support those in need around the world?” Walsh asks. “Seems like quite a stretch,” he concludes.

Meanwhile, a new history, Mondo Agnelli: Fiat, Chrysler and The Power of a Dynasty, has hit a Kindle near you. (It’s also available in paper.)

It appears to be everything you’d want a book about automobile manufacturing to be -- “rich with affairs, suicides, drugs, family lawsuits, secrecy, hidden assets, offshore accounts, Benito Mussolini, princes and princesses, Jackie Kennedy, palaces and yachts, spectacular weddings, stately funerals and deep family loyalty,”reviewerKerry Hannon tells us in USA Today.

The story begins with Giovanni, who founded Fiat in 1899. It “roars through” the life of his grandson, the late Giovanni ‘Gianni’ Agnelli and pulls up with his grandson and heir, John Elkann, 35, the current Fiat chairman and Gianni's grandson, who is “reportedly tamer and methodical.”

It also tells the tale of the family’s unorthodox hiring of family and auto-industry outsider Marchionne as CEO in 2004 when the company was bleeding money. Author Jennifer Clark “describes how he spent his first few months knocking on office doors in the carmaker's factories, scouring the company's ranks to pick the people to build his new 24-member management team,” according to Hannon. "He was looking for young people who wanted to lead," writes Clark, and 2,000 executives got early-retirement packages as a result of his personal interviews.

Back to advertising. One thing’s for certain: Chrysler and it agency, Wieden & Kennedy, have cracked the code on how to get increased mileage out of its Super Bowl ads, and the gauge is still a long way from reading empty.