Quote Of The Day: On Obama’s McCain As Celebrity Campaign Ad
The quote of the day comes from Dick Polman, who takes a look at Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s recent campaign ad nothing that Republican Sen. John McCain is a celebrity, too.
First, Polman notes that McCain is actually more of a celebrity if you use one measure:
Anyway, the Obama people have finally retaliated by showing quick excerpts of McCain’s longtime love of the celebrity limelight, but they could have gone a lot further by tallying the key stats on screen: 12 visits to The Daily Show, 10 visits to Leno, eight visits to Letterman, three times to Conan O’Brien, two visits to Entertainment Tonight, a visit to Regis and Kathy Lee, a guest stint on 24, a cameo in the movie Wedding Crashers, and a celebrity guest shot on World Wrestling Entertainment Raw. They could have also tossed in his six homes (thanks to his rich wife), his family’s lavish use of credit cards, and his reported affection for $500 shoes.
They chose, instead, to mix the McCain celebrity imagery with more traditional fare – namely, five separate shots of McCain hugging it out with ideological compadre George W. Bush…which does make a fair bit of sense, given the fact, as even Fox News pointed out on Sunday, that McCain in the Senate has voted with Bush 95 percent of the time.
And what does it mean — and what does it likely portend? Here’s Polman’s key quote:
The bottom line is that the Obama people have at last recognized the importance of countering the Republican attacks. Indeed, it’s likely that the GOP strategy, crafted by the Karl Rove alumni who signed on earlier this summer, has helped give McCain some much-needed traction, at least by holding Obama’s national lead to modest (and vulnerable) single digits. There’s no way that the Obama people would be lashing back with a McCain-as-celebrity ad unless they were truly concerned that McCain’s trash talk might be swaying the impressionable. (Low-information voters are far more likely to remember that “hot chicks dig Obama” than remember what the candidate said about Russia and Georgia. Much less know where to find Georgia on a map.)
Perhaps a sustained counterattack on McCain’s celebrity-mongering might blunt the GOP’s low-road messaging. Nevertheless, I wonder whether the Obama camp is making a mistake by putting the candidate in front of 75,000 people for his nomination acceptance speech on Aug. 28. That spectacle will further inspire Obama’s current supporters, but the clever Rove alumni in the McCain camp may well use that imagery to refine their caricature of Obama as a pop celebrity and little more – to take his alleged strength as a candidate and spin it as a weakness. Will that work? Just remember, the votes of the credulous count the same as everybody else’s.
Polman is right on target here. Don’t ever forget that Karl Rove’s genius as a political tactician and strategist has been to effectively take his candidate’s opponent’s greatest strength and turn that into a negative. So if Obama gives his speech in front of 75,000 people the talk show and blog mantras will be that a)this shows he’s merely a celebrity b) this shows he’s a lightweight c)this show that the people sitting all there think he is a Messiah.
And, as Polman points out, American elections aren’t necessarily decided on the meaty issues and thoughtful discussion (big uunderstatement). It’s increasingly boiling down to who can throw the most mud. Or at least the most mud that sticks.
7 Responses to “Quote Of The Day: On Obama’s McCain As Celebrity Campaign Ad”
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“nothing that Republican Sen. John McCain is a celebrity, too”
This from the start and always has been bogus and worthless and what does it say about the mental health (and fitness for the suffrage! damned Dim exploiters) that anyone would persist with this BS?
Isn't the messianic iconography of the Obama campaign, the content-free platitudes of Obama's speeches, and the attempt to create gigantic, worshipful venues in Berlin and Denver – isn't all of this a pretty obvious appeal to what Mr. Gandelman calls “low information voters”? Shouldn't intelligent people be insulted by that approach?
Viewed in this context, the McCain “celebrity” ads can be seen as an attempt to grab such voters and say: “Hey, idiot, wake up! Get serious here, and assess the two candidates as potential Presidents, potential Commanders-in-Chiefs. This isn't an episode of American Idol.” I'd argue that by attempting the wake people up, McCain's campaign is appealing to people's intelligence in a way that Obama's campaign is not.
“nothing that Republican Sen. John McCain is a celebrity, too”
This from the start and always has been bogus and worthless and what does it say about the mental health (and fitness for the suffrage! damned Dim exploiters) that anyone would persist with this BS?
This is a savvy ad, because it widens the scope of the critique to include Obama supporters. The ad portrays Obama supporters as insubstantial and silly, making them into a group that undecided voters will not want to identify with.
Here is my take on why I think the ad will work: The Obama Fan Club: Why McCAin's Ad Might Work
THe 'genius' of karl rove? Are you joking?
The genius of Karl Rove re: Gore vs W. Bush in 2000 was basically the fact that an incumbent VP, running during a time of unprecedented economic growth and relative international stability ran a ridiculously Lousy campaign, and won the popular vote while losing the electoral under very dubious circumstances..
Hardly genius level tactics involved (oh yeah and an albatross around Gore's neck named Monica Lewinsky).
2004, exploit peoples fears about terrorist attacks, run slanderous smear ads about your opponent, coupled again with pathetic campaign by John Kerry – Rove's alledged 'genius' campaigns have revolved around running against opponnets who doom themselves by vacilating between getting down in the gutter where Rove lives, or making half hearted responses which fail to take their opponents weaknesses into account (stupidity, first and foremost). Bill Clinton would have easily crushed W. in 2000 if he could have run a third term – stop giving credit to the crude, juvenile tactics of a low brow political hack like Rove – in any other state but Texas, GWB would NEVER have won the governershipm, and his presidential victories, first by a judicial decision, and second in one of the worst presidential campaigns ever waged (his fathers in '88 being the worst) hardly quantify as brilliant tacticians – as the old saying goes, you have to be good and LUCKY – Rove/Bush were good, but they were very, very lucky.