"Celebrity" ads and responses

[LeoGetz]

I freaking love it. Please god let Obama run an ad of McCain stealing baby Alex from his mother in the middle of the night Elian Gonzalez style & send him to Iraq.

McCain ad likens Obama to Paris Hilton, Britney Spears

[ari1013]

One word: Desperation.

I didn't realize it was this bad for McCain.

[Doc Fluty]

yeah.. thats a gay ad

[DenButsu]

McCain's going to lose for sure if he keeps campaigning this way.

All this was was a slow-pitched softball for Obama to hit back hard on McCain for his negative campaigning.


Keep setting 'em up, John. Obama will knock 'em down.

[FearAD]

It's kinda sad.

McCain whining they like him more.
":They pay more attention to him."

None of my friend are sending me any Pro-McCain email. They just complain about Barack.

I think Barack is going to slay him in the debates.

[ari1013]

It's kinda sad.

McCain whining they like him more.
":They pay more attention to him."

None of my friend are sending me any Pro-McCain email. They just complain about Barack.

I think Barack is going to slay him in the debates.

That's what happens when you have no message of your own. You simply rely on attacking the other candidate.

McCain and Kerry are good friends. I wonder if they shared ideas on how to run a campaign.

[CubsGirl]

That's what happens when you have no message of your own. You simply rely on attacking the other candidate.

McCain and Kerry are good friends. I wonder if they shared ideas on how to run a campaign.

I think he has a message, but Obama is apparently such a tough candidate to run against that he feels the need to try and make people dislike Obama more than he wants to make people like him

[DenButsu]

he feels the need to try and make people dislike Obama more than he wants to make people like him

I think the big problem there is that McCain is precisely at his least likable when he's trying too hard to be liked.

("And that's not change we can believe in... heh-heh heh..... heh")

[ari1013]

I think he has a message, but Obama is apparently such a tough candidate to run against that he feels the need to try and make people dislike Obama more than he wants to make people like him

When is the last time McCain has actually spoken about his message at the national level? All of his ads focus on Obama. So all we see in the battlegrounds is:

Obama talking about how he was raised with good old fashioned American values and how that's what has inspired him to bring America back on the right path

And McCain endorsing attack ads on Obama for being a liberal elitist who hates all things American and instead prefers basketball, Honest Tea, and, of course, arugala.

[cubsofchicago]

lol did they really think that was a good ad lol i cant believe they aired it

[gcoll]

One word: Desperation.

I didn't realize it was this bad for McCain.

It's not. In most polls, doesn't he trail by somewhere around 2 points?

[WES445]

And we still got roughly 3 more months to go. Who is the drunk monkey running McCain's political smear dept.?

[DenButsu]

John Weaver, for years one of John McCain's closest friends and confidants, has been in exile since his resignation from McCain's presidential campaign last year. With the exception of an occasional interview, he has, by his own account, bit his tongue as McCain's campaign has adopted a strategy that Weaver believes "diminishes John McCain."

With the release today of a McCain television ad blasting Obama for celebrity preening while gas prices rise, and a memo that accuses Obama of putting his own aggrandizement before the country, Weaver said he's had "enough."

The ad's premise, he said, is "childish."

"John's been a celebrity ever since he was shot down," Weaver said. "Whatever that means. And I recall Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush going overseas and all those waving American flags."

Weaver remains in contact with senior McCain strategists and, for a while early this year, regularly talked to McCain.

The strategy of driving up Obama's negatives "reduces McCain on the stage," Weaver said.

"For McCain to win in such troubled times, he needs to begin telling the American people how he intends to lead us. That McCain exists. He can inspire the country to greatness."

He added: "There is legitimate mockery of a political campaign now, and it isn't at Obama's. For McCain's sake, this tomfoolery needs to stop."

theatlantic.com



The tone and quality of Weaver's statements sure have the feel to me of a guy who still considers McCain a friend and seems genuinely concerned about the direction his campaign is taking, and maybe even the impact that sort of campaigning might have on McCain's legacy and reputation. So if that's true, for a guy in that position that's some pretty powerful stuff.

And it makes me wonder... (And this is just pure speculation on my part, since I really don't know much about the inner workings of the McCain campaign)... Is this an indication that the right-shifting of McCain's political rhetoric isn't only a strategic maneuver, but that the reigns of his campaign have actually been seized by its more rightist elements? If the guys in his campaign who were the real bridge builders across party lines, the ones who were really with him on the "maverick/reformer" type trajectories, if they're the same ones who are getting the boot from his staff and lamenting how his campaign is being run now... Well, I don't really know what that would mean, but somehow it seems to me like it makes it much harder for McCain to present himself as an independent-minded maverick if his ship is being captained and crewed by status quo elements. They're just going to have a natural tendency to steer him away from that. And it's going to show, so voters will see it.

[SmthBluCitrus]

I showed my husband the ad and these were his exact words (he's very a-political, by the way; he very rarely votes) ...

"Aren't they running against each other? I couldn't even hear what the girl was saying, but did he endorse Obama?"

I thought that was interesting. Again, my husband doesn't pay attention to "this stuff," as he puts it. But, I think that means the ad didn't sit the way they had intended.

[DenButsu]

Yeah, it does kind of have a beer commercial feel to it (drunk blonde, product, drunk blonde, product...)