Much has been made of John McCain’s new ad campaign, which describes Barack Obama as a “Celebrity” and compares him to Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears. Barack himself chose to address this campaign, albeit tangentially, in MO today. Josh Marshall and a host of Liberal bloggers have picked up on this new gambit as a means to a white girls/black guys scare tactic ala the attacks on Harold Ford. And since the media is showing McCain’s ads more than McCain is, I guess there’s no harm in linking to it here:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHXYsw_ZDXg[/youtube]
So, perhaps I lack nuance. But really, even if what they intended to do was paint Obama as a nigga with a taste for white ass, is that what they’ve accomplished? I never thought about this ad like that even once. My impression was: “are we voting for President of the United States or of the Death Cab for Cutie Fan Club?”
Because this ad is the pissing-est, moaning-est, most emasculated pile of crap I’ve ever seen in a presidential election cycle. It’s not “withering” as someone recently described the ad, if by withering you mean damaging to Obama; it is as though they video taped John McCain’s balls shrinking into infinity. If the best defense you can come up with against a popular figure is, “oh, he’s sooooo popular! Why don’t you just marry him?” you should probably pack your Depends and call it a day.
And to follow this gelding display with a lame “tax and spend liberal” line, as though you didn’t notice the entire tenor of this campaign is better than that, just makes things worse.
Don’t get me wrong: there is a specific and significant strain of anti-elite, anti-celebrity sentiment that, when properly tapped into, can be the death-knell of any successful campaign. There is a way to cut into a candidate by making him look like the “popular” kid everybody hated in school. Or the rich kid. John Kerry and para-sailing come to mind.
But this ain’t it. This is just pathetic.