by Jonathan Singer, Thu Aug 21, 2008 at 08:19:30 AM EDT
This is remarkably fast:
No word yet on where the ad is running, but I'll pass on the details if and when I get them...
Update [2008-8-21 13:3:13 by Jonathan Singer]: I'm informed by the campaign that the ad is running on a "national cable buy."
Tags: Barack Obama, Economy, John McCain, Out of Touch, rapid response (all tags)
I believe the campaign said it was a national cable ad buy
Finally, we are seeing the gloves come off. Thank you for waking up Team Obama. Christ, this is too perfect. Just when the Dem's needed to come out swinging McCain finds a big ol' Silver Platter in one of those houses of his, and serves up a heaping dish of GAFFEE.
Thank the gods the Dems are pouncing on this like frickin' Cat Nip!!!!!
I'm in such a good mood this morning.
Bill Burton said it would be running on national cable, however I don't think it's really going to run as a paid advertisement more than a few times. This ad was created to generate the free media, I imagine.
It is a fundamental law of the corporate press/media that only Republican and right-wing ads get a week of free airplay.
Accurate attack ads, which Democrats have a tendency to prefer, aren't as newsworthy. They don't stir up passions like unfair accusations do. So McCain got nailed for being rich and out-of-touch. Yawn.
Below-the-belt, scurrilous or mendacious stuff (like Clinton's 3a.m. ad, the Paris Hilton ad or the Swiftboaters) on the other hand, are something cable news programs can really dig into. The fact-checkers, pollsters and media psychologists all get to weigh in. Then they all hypocritically lament the decline in political civility and move on to the next bullshit salvo.
Which makes me think Obama could run an ad about McCain's involvement in the infamous Arizona Chainsaw Massacre of 1984 (and maybe morph McCain into Leatherface while he's at it). You want free media? I'll get you free media! There's got to be a clip of McCain losing his temper somewhere that can lend some credibility to it.
McCain can't remember
Number of houses,
the difference between Sunni and Shia...
I like the ad. I think it's a little too touchy-feely - it could have used a heavier soundtrack than that lite piano - and I wish it had included his line about rich being defined as $5m/yr. Maybe it could also include that Obama just finished paying off his student loans, and grew up on food stamps?
But that said, I do like it; this is exactly the kind of thing we need to hit McCain on. I'm not sure anything more revolting has been said this election cycle.
That's a poison pill. McCain could say "they're taking a joke out of context", which is true.
Of course, I'd like to see an ad saying "Five million isn't the threshold for rich and the economy isn't a joking matter," but that's a separate issue.
Can't wait to see the ad where McDraft agrees we need to reinstate the draft to fight his wars.
Outstanding.
Nothing says "we won't be swiftboated" like going for the jugular.
Someday we will wake up and ask ourselves, with an advantage on virtually every single issue that matters to the American people this year, how did we ever manage to get bogged down in all these tangential food fights about who is the bigger celebrity, who is more out of touch, etc. I will respectfully dissent from all those who are cheerleading for more of this.
Because arguably those people who are still on the fence do not vote (at least primarily) based on the issues, but based on character and more nebulous feelings towards the candidates. The purely logical voter is a myth.
Perhaps the one thing Obama's campaign has done poorly is to manage expectations. Such complaints as yours are based on a presupposition that Obama should be running away with it when recent elections have shown that in fact the electorate is very evenly divided.
So do you think Congress will be very evenly divided after this election?
If we are winning Congress by runaway margins for two elections in a row, and yet the Presidency is a nail biter, it's reasonable to ask if maybe we are doing something wrong.
Allowing the Presidential election to become a contest of personalities and trivia, rather than a contest of ideologies, is a mistake in my opinion.
The media makes it pretty damn hard to run a presidential race on actual issues. And, I would add, that there is an explicit and fair tie in to this add that is missing in the GOP triviality fest. McCain really is dangerously wrong on the economy and his policies truly are out of touch with the issues people are facing. Sure, this is a gottcha ad, but the message is actually important.
Presidential elections are always contests of personalities and trivia. You go to war with the political culture you have.
"So do you think Congress will be very evenly divided after this election?"
I assumed the difference between presidential and congressional politics was obvious.
I'm sure some Republicans thought Dole would run away from Clinton based on their congressional prowess at the time.
"Allowing the Presidential election to become a contest of personalities and trivia, rather than a contest of ideologies, is a mistake in my opinion."
Different voters have to be won over --or alienated from the other candidate -- in different ways. Appealing only to the logic of the intelligent minority is the recipe for failure.
McBush and the GOP have a built in advantage due to their adeptness at playing to the unintelligent -- their entire platform and messaging is built around it. But that doesn't mean Obama can't peel off enough of them to win by pointing out some of the things about McSame that they won't like -- like the fact that he doesn't even know how many houses he owns.
Or that he wants to draft their kids to fight his new wars -- which of course is the contest of idealogies you prefer.
All I know is, I'm not willing to let Bush get a third term due to unilateral disarmament in any sphere of politics.
the prototype of every Republican campaign since 1968 has been Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign. Its a toxic combo of Joe McCarthy and RMN.
See Nixonland
If you're arguing with someone and they throw a tomato at you, people stop caring about the arguments. The only thing you is bean them right back with a hot pastrami sandwich.
Sucks, yeah, but sensationalism trumps dry issue discussion every time. Obama likes to rail against distractions because he knows they're the only thing that can prevent him from winning.
I dunno. In the aftermath of 2004, I remember some policy organization that did polling and found that most "undecided" voters simply did not believe that the presidential candidates could make any specific impact on their personal lives. Did not believe that access to affordable health care was a political issue, with political solutions, for example. In part, they were very defeatist, very fatalistic - "things suck, they always will."
Those who made up their minds one way or the other typically had a specific issue they clung to, right or wrong, whether that be guns, gays, abortion, whatever.
I think people do need to hear a compelling case about how we are going to change the average American's life for the better. How our candidate offers actual solutions to the problems besetting the little guy. In a sea of "just another politician," which is where all this personal sniping goes, it seems that some voters shrug and pull the lever for whomever their neighbor is voting for.
There honestly are issues that are important to people. Health care is huge. If we had a compelling message on our side about even one issue that had broad, across-the-board appeal to the average American, and could demonstrate tangibly that we could accomplish it and life would be better under a Dem administration, we'd win. Yes, some people will vote on who they'd like to have a beer with. I believe that is because they have not heard a compelling case for why the politicians are different on issues in a way that is personal to the voter.
these tangential food fights about who is the bigger celebrity, who is more out of touch, etc.
Is nothing good enough?
Obama should hit harder.
(when he hit hard) I don't like it.
(when he covers the issues) He's not covering issues.
Go dig a hole and play in the mud please. You're not doing a fucking thing to help the cause with all the concern trolling.
Best part: "We can't afford more of the same"
Above all else, that needs to be the message. More of the same, more of the same, more of the same. If generic Democrat beats generic Republican, you have to keep pointing out that McCain is a generic Republican.
This is obviously a pre-planned "attack" ad from the Dems. They've had surrogates yappin about McCain's houses for a week.
I'm not sure what they are thinking, really. McCain will just fire back with an ad saying that at least a convicted political briber didn't buy any of his houses for him.
The Dems may have just opened a hornet's nest and over a silly issue at that.
McCain will just fire back with an ad saying that at least a convicted political briber didn't buy any of his houses for him.
Nope, just the young, wealthy beer heiress he left his crippled first wife to marry. That'll be a winning response.
And I'm sure McCain would love to get into who has or has not taken political bribes between him and Barack Obama...
Jonathan, you should update this diary with details of the survey the Obama campaign is conducting in PA and FL to find out the number of people there who do not know how many homes they own.
Ya know way too many people wanted "heavy-hitting ads last month...were complaining about Obama being too soft..
tell ya what..The same Candidate and campaign folks that brought him the nomination have now been supplemented..with other folks..(like a number from Clinton).
It will not really matter who his veep is..
He did not need a veep to defeat Clinton.
It still amazes me how so many remain shell-shocked as the result of 2000 and 2004.
Quit being afraid!
This is a different kind of Candidate.
This is a different kind of Campaign.
As a nation we loves our spectacles..
.....wait until the 28th..
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myDD - skin
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