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McCain vs. Obama Ad Wars Heat Up
By Clarence Page, Tribune Media Services
What do Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears have in common with offshore
oil drilling?
All three come together in an odd attack ad from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. The ad from the presumptive Republican nominee charges Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, of being -- wait for it -- a celebrity!
Are you shocked? Did you faint dead away?
As attack ads go, this one seems notably inept -- at least at first glance. There's no doomsday voiceover, no sharks-in-the-water music, no grainy slow-motion close-up photos of scary headlines or indicted co-conspirators.
Instead, red-carpet shots of the starlets segue into majestic scenes of Obama smiling to cheering crowds. It ends with a predictably distorted description of Obama's energy policy. In brief: Obama hugs trees, McCain hugs offshore oil rigs.
Yet, as attack ads go, this one hardly leaves a mark on Obama's constantly- uplifted chin. In fact, "if you shut off the sound," one somewhat bemused GOP pollster told the Los Angeles Times, "almost all the images of Obama are very positive." Just as it is hard to make an antiwar movie that depicts what soldiers really go through, it is not easy to make an anti-Obama ad that shows Obama in front of cheering crowds.
But the ad's value soon proved itself. By highlighting Paris and Britney, it received millions of dollars worth of free airplay and chatter on cable TV and the celebrity gossip shows and reporters. McCain's ad people understand TV's weakness for the spoiled celebrities that audiences love to deplore.
Ironically it was not that long ago that McCain was tagged in Republican circles as a star-seeker. He's hosted Saturday Night Live, acted on "24" and in "The Wedding Crashers" and enjoyed such favorable coverage that NBC's Chris Matthews, among others, used to call the media McCain's "base."
And Hollywood folks loved him, too. Hollywood names like Norman Lear, Harrison Ford, Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy and Michael Douglas have to the "maverick" McCain. Now he's belittling Paris Hilton, the daughter of Rick and Kathleen Hilton, two of McCain's campaign contributors, according to the Los Angeles Times. Great way to say thanks, Senator.
Nowadays McCain looks like a wallflower at the prom while his former adoring media runs off after the new dreamboat. Like most media-driven campaign narratives, it's overblown. Although McCain received less coverage than Obama in recent weeks, a George Mason University study found that Obama's coverage tended to include more criticism of him than McCain's did. The media giveth and we taketh away.
Obama was expressing more concern with the media that his opponents pay to put on the air. On the day McCain's ad rolled out into TV markets in 11 states, Obama said in Missouri that McCain and other Republicans would try to frighten voters by talking about Obama's "funny name" and the fact that "he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills." McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis took umbrage. He accused Sen. Barack Obama of playing the "race card ... from the bottom of the deck," borrowing a line that us old-timers remember from the O. J. Simpson trials.
Times have changed. You used to have to be engaged in actual bigotry to be accused of "playing the race card." These days you can be acused of racism merely for bringing up the subject of race.
Soon a viral idea spread across the blogosphere and talk shows that, in juxtaposing Obama with the two fame queens, the ad delivered subliminally racist messages. Could this, many asked, be a more subtle version of the bimbo ad that undermined Democratic Rep. Harold Ford's senate campaign in Tennessee?
I don't buy it. Unlike the Ford ads, the McCain ads imply no relationship between Obama and the blondes.
Besides, if you want to argue subliminals, this ad might just as easily sway some of the "Leave Britany Alone" crowd to vote for Obama, if they can find their polling places.
On another front, Obama had to take time to denounce a=2 0new song by the rapper Ludacris, "Politics (Obama is Here)."
Besides taking cheap vulgar shots at McCain and Hillary Clinton, the song includes a line that echoes a recent controversial New Yorker cover: We gonna "Paint the White House black," he raps, "and I'm sure that's got 'em terrified." Most terrified is the Obama camp by Ludacris' subliminal gift to the McCain campaign, as both vie for the support of working-class white Americans who are not all big fans of rap.
That's show biz. It's not enough to run against your opposition. You also have to keep your suppporters on message.
========
E-mail Clarence Page at cpage(at)tribune.com, or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207.
(c) 2008 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
This news arrived on: 08/03/2008
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Posted Comments:
08-11-2008 04:00
ed wrote:
gumboboy -- you sound like someone who's more interested in what's going on on the cartoon page than the front page.
08-06-2008 17:10
gumboboy wrote:
RME KRNL
To answer your question, I too lived through the Regan years and I remember the trickle down theory and the junk bonds of that Republican era. To me Mr Regan had nothing to be so confident about. And yes, Regan was governor of the same state that "Arnold" is governor of now, another celebrity.
08-06-2008 01:37
RME KRNL wrote:
Ad Wars
Ah, Clarence, every once in a while you surprise me and write a piece that's almost fair and balanced. Thank you. So refreshing.
Yes, McCain's "celebrity" ad (actually "kept alive" by liberal media/pundit types condemning it as everything from frivolous, to containing phallic symbols, to racially playing on old stereotypes of the black man and white women, to ad hominem, to ad nauseum) was, in fact, effective. It clearly poked fun at Obama's celebrity and raised the real issue of mere celebrity not qualifying one for leadership. It captured a lot of the week's news cycle, which kept Obama from building on his recent whirlwind tour as he had hoped. It put Team Obama on the defensive and Obama off-message.
Obama quickly tried to swat it away by asking if that was the best that Team McCain had, that the campaign should be about more than Paris Hilton, that it should be about serious issues, blah, blah -- but that didn't work either. Anyone with a dab of common sense knew the ad raised a valid issue -- Obama's lack of experience and proven leadership ability -- and did it in a clever and fun way.
Note to gumboboy: I don't know how old, or mature, you are -- although I have my doubts about someone who calls himself "gumboboy" -- but I lived through the Reagan years and you should get your talking points straight before saying too much about Reagan. He was confident, sure, but his confidence was in this great country of ours and its people more than it was about himself. That's why he often used his gift for humor in a humble, self-deprecating way about himself. When is the last time you heard or saw Obama act humble or self-deprecating? There's a difference between confident and cocky. Yes, Reagan was a Hollywood celebrity before becoming president, but he was also, along the way, governor of one of the largest and the most populous state in the country. What has Obama actually done that even comes close?
Yes, McCain's "celebrity" ad (actually "kept alive" by liberal media/pundit types condemning it as everything from frivolous, to containing phallic symbols, to racially playing on old stereotypes of the black man and white women, to ad hominem, to ad nauseum) was, in fact, effective. It clearly poked fun at Obama's celebrity and raised the real issue of mere celebrity not qualifying one for leadership. It captured a lot of the week's news cycle, which kept Obama from building on his recent whirlwind tour as he had hoped. It put Team Obama on the defensive and Obama off-message.
Obama quickly tried to swat it away by asking if that was the best that Team McCain had, that the campaign should be about more than Paris Hilton, that it should be about serious issues, blah, blah -- but that didn't work either. Anyone with a dab of common sense knew the ad raised a valid issue -- Obama's lack of experience and proven leadership ability -- and did it in a clever and fun way.
Note to gumboboy: I don't know how old, or mature, you are -- although I have my doubts about someone who calls himself "gumboboy" -- but I lived through the Reagan years and you should get your talking points straight before saying too much about Reagan. He was confident, sure, but his confidence was in this great country of ours and its people more than it was about himself. That's why he often used his gift for humor in a humble, self-deprecating way about himself. When is the last time you heard or saw Obama act humble or self-deprecating? There's a difference between confident and cocky. Yes, Reagan was a Hollywood celebrity before becoming president, but he was also, along the way, governor of one of the largest and the most populous state in the country. What has Obama actually done that even comes close?
08-06-2008 01:17
gumboboy wrote:
To Pspaay
You talk of the politicians selling this country out, but who sat in congress for 26 years and help sell this country out? It sure wasn't Barak Obama; he is the change we need. Whether it's Barak Obama or someone else, change is gonna come. The world has changed, and America refuses to live in fear of the outside world, the fear that the conservative right plays on and tries to drum up. The youth of today have proved that they want change by casting their vote to Sen. Obama. The arguments you give are unfounded and baseless. It shows how fearful you really are.
08-06-2008 00:18
Pspaay wrote:
Ad War
What Kent describes as Obama's flexibility, we used to call being a space cadet with a high drift rate. Jim states that the attacks on Obama have no substance. Excuse me, but when I hear the man say that he wants to start programs to end world poverty, I wonder on whose dime he intends to do this. He talks about more taxes and more giveaway programs when the U.S. is already bankrupt. As far as the drilling goes, we have hundreds of wells already that are not being used because the government, through the E.P.A., has banned using those wells. The Alaskan oil has been sold to other countries since it was started. What really scares me is the Democrats socialist/Marxist agenda. Read "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History" if you really want to see what the politicians have done to this country. Obama is just another politician who will sell us out as soon as he is in office.
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