OK, this one is funnier than the celebrity one. Not great, but funny. The Moses part made me laugh out loud:
I showed it to a couple of colleagues just now, and they thought it would hurt McCain. I don't. I think it pokes fun at Obama Mania, and once again raises the question: is there anything below the hype?
This is important to do. Both McCain and Obama are running largely on biography. True, they both have policy positions, but the most compelling thing about each of these candidates is his personal story. McCain is doing his best to undermine that, and to define Obama as overhyped. Obama's challenge is more difficult. He can't be seen to attack the military experience that is the core of McCain's personal appeal, because McCain was tortured. And while it's a lot easier to define Obama in the public's mind, McCain's been on the scene for so long that his image is fixed in the public's mind.
If I were Obama, I'd make a funny ad poking fun at McCain's image as a maverick, but showing instead how he's been subservient to the Bush agenda. I think Obama's admakers can surely carry off humor better than McCain's. Still, this new McCain ad is definitely a step up from the celebrity ad. The addition of Charlton Heston is a masterful touch.
What do you think?
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NOW, I get it! John McCain's gotten so old and cranky that he can no longer hide his jealousy of Obama.
Perfect explanation!
After all, McCain was only whispered to have fathered ONE black baby. Now there goes Obama fathering TWO and playing the 'black baby card.'
The nerve! How...how...UPPITY !!!!
(Hey. The topic was political humor, wasn't it!? And I did it without reference to anything that will affect our lives, didn't I!)
(Rod, you may use this idea without attribution.)
AML | August 1, 2008 10:16 PM
Why is it that these Brits are so much more literate, well-read, and witty than the rest of us?
Dammit I love to hear Americans salivating over us Brits. Makes such a refreshing change from those references to bad teeth.
Muskrat | August 1, 2008 4:20 PM sets up a false dichotomy: "Is McCain joking around, teasing Obama, or is he serious that Obama is a megalomaniac with a messiah complex?"
Obama is running a campaign to mesmerize, to enthrall people, because his rhetorical skills combined with present political circumstances make people want to believe. McCain's ad is neither teasing Obama nor seriously saying he's a megalomaniac. It's trying to disenthrall voters so they can contrast McCain's real accomplishments with those of Obama, whose accomplishments are listening well, talking very well, dodging many issues, and taking a far left position on the issues he doesn't dodge.
That's why Doug Cramer | August 1, 2006 5:04 PM is semi-wrong suggesting that McCain is tacitly conceding that the election is "all about Obama." It must be about taking Obama off the pedestal he has encouraged people to put him on ("see how wonderful He is! He even can poke fun at Himself!) until the election can be about experience and substance. As Flannery O'Connor said, to the deaf you must shout, and for the blind you must use bold and startling colors.
James | August 1, 2008 11:43 PM: Get a life! That was Charlton Heston, American Icon, not Moses.
McCain came to my hometown in the first stop of his get acquainted tour. The airfield at the navy base here is McCain field. Many of the National Guardsmen across the country have trained at Camp McCain in the middle of my state. His roots are here and his whole family has a tremendous history of service to our country. A good friend from college is running his campaign here.
I desperately wanted the opportunity to meet him and give just one bit of advice. But now I realize I don't have to. The advice is this: Do not make the same mistake that the first president Bush made when running against a young charismatic darling of the media. Attack him. Do not hit him with kid gloves, use brass knuckles. You can take the high road but you will lose. There is another Ross Perot lurking out there who will steal away just enough votes to give this guy the presidency. Call him to the carpet and expose him for what he is. That is how Ross Perot got his votes. If another Perot does not show up on the ballot, these voters might just stay home.
Your opponent has no resume, no accomplishments. He has spent his entire life positioning himself for the next highest position. Do not worry one bit about pissing off liberal Americans. They hate you and all conservatives with a venimous passion. The consevatives will rally around you in the end. Target the middle. Win the Ross Perot voters and you will win. And have some fun while doing it. Americans like a president with some swagger.
FINALLY, someone in the media had the nerve to say what's been obvious to many, including those who remember the ad run against Harold Ford.
Kudos to David Gergen: "When McCain's camp calls Obama "The Messiah" and "The One", he's really calling him "upitty." I'm from the South, and we understand what that means. That's code." (not exact quote -- view video below)
It's the same wink and nod we've seen for years since Buchanan and Nixon's 'Southern strategy' worked.
Of course part of the whole gig is that since it's not obvious to everyone, that provides a certain deniability. Well, give me a break. We're talking about professionals engaged in national politics for the nation's highest office. If they did not know what they're doing on all these levels, then they're incompetent.
And if those raised in the South -- say Louisiana, for example -- claim not to recognize this immediately, then that's simply cooperating with the wink and nod OR having failed to absorb the surrounding culture they grew up in OR thinking that said culture can be glossed over by pretending it does not exist.
And let me add that, having read thousands of his words on many topics over the past four-plus years, I am quite sure that Rod Dreher is not in any way a racist, so don't read that into what I've written here. I may disagree with his politics, but it's plain to me that he holds all people to be equally God's children. (Hey, take a complement when you can get it!)
Here the video of Gergen on ABC's This Week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfXvK84MPqQ
video
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