New McCain Ad: Obama May Be "The One"

UPDATE: The Obama campaign has reacted to McCain's latest ad starring him and Moses.
This time Obama didn't personalize the response. Much smarter than how he responded yesterday to the Britney-Paris ad.

From the Obama campaign:

"It's downright sad that on a day when we learned that 51,000 Americans lost their jobs, a candidate for the presidency is spending all of his time and the powerful platform he has on these sorts of juvenile antics," said spokesman Hari Sevugan. "Senator McCain can keep telling everyone how 'proud' he is of these political stunts which even his Republican friends and advisors have called 'childish', but Barack Obama will continue talking about his plan to jumpstart our economy by giving working families $1,000 of immediate relief."

The fallout over the Britney Spears-Paris Hilton celebrity ad only appears to have emboldened John McCain's new strategy to paint Barack Obama as a witless fad. McCain's latest ad ratchets up the celebrity comparisons by putting the Senator next to one of the biggest figures in time: Moses.

Obamaone1
by dollarsandsense123

McCain's strategy doesn't feel too different from a tactic Hillary Clinton used against Barack Obama in February when her campaign started to realize it wasn't going to fulfill its media-anointed mantle of inevitability. Hillary mocked Obama, telling the crowd "the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect."

Making fun of Barack Obama as a Jesus figure obviously didn't help Hillary. That doesn't mean it can't help McCain. Unlike Hillary, the GOP candidate isn't the one explicitly making fun of Obama. When Hillary did it, people made fun of her. Yes, McCain's in the commercials, but only to approve them. By creating an ad campaign around mocking Obama, McCain is forcing him to comment and therefore make the ads a bigger deal. That's exactly what happened on Thursday when Obama commented on the Paris-Britney ad. Obama took the bait and did just what the McCain camp wanted him to do when he said McCain was saying he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." Obama's comment painted himself as different, a figure of race, a person who rose up by different means, perhaps even through celebrity... Let's see how the Obama campaign reacts to this one. (Update: Obama has responded. See above.)

ABC dissects the ad to show where the McCain camp is spinning "the one" out of context:

"We are the ones we've been waiting for," Obama says, in his Super Duper Tuesday speech in California.

The narrator continues: "And he has anointed himself, ready to carry the burden of The One. To quote Barack, 'I have become a symbol of America returning to our best traditions.'"

As we covered earlier in the week, that quote was actually Obama telling House Democrats that the big crowds and enthusiastic receptions he received in Europe had less to do with him than they had to do with a desire for a new U.S. foreign policy. In a way, it was more a statement of humility than arrogance.

"He can do no wrong," the narrator says.

Cut to an excerpt of CBS's Lara Logan asking Obama, "Do you have any doubts?"

"Never," Obama says, smiling.

"Can you see the light?" asks the narrator.

Comments

[tigerkite]

Maybe he should run The Empire Strikes Barack as a campaign commercial, at least that's funny on purpose.

[jayjaga]

The is a very serious big gaffe by McBush. Evangelicals, Catholics, other Christians and Jews who believe in the Holy Bible and Tora will never take it lightly this time around.

McBush is now using Moses imagery to mock his political opponent.

Wonders will never cease to happen! I think McBush has met his waterloo this time.

[Ajegunle]

Itis official: McCain and the GOP are insane.

[Darsan54]

Is this for REAL ?? This is like no campaign ad I have ever seen before. If Obama is the ONE, than wouldn't it be the absolutely right thing to vote for him? Wouldn't anyone in opposition be part of Satan's team?

McCain been talkin to Hagee, maybe?

[nobillary1]

Gee, I think John McCain has finally woken up and sees that he will lose this election! Seeing that he has no chance of defeating Obama in November, he's put out the Crown Jewel in his ad repertoire to ensure his loss. Then he can go back to the Senate where EVERYONE can turn their backs on him and he will be treated as the Pariah that he is. Good Work, John!

But, you know what the greatest thing about this ad is?

John McCain will be buoyed by the MSM because by releasing it for the Friday Dump, he has played right into their hands! Just to be sure NOBODY misses it, the stations and You Tube will play it over, and over, and over again! And how splendid that it will be Gratis Advertising. We couldn't ask for more, could we? But, just to be sure that there isn't one person or two that might miss it, the pundits will talk about it incessantly for oh, at least the next 3 days anyway, (weekends are usually slow in politics) and that will surely guarantee every person on the planet hears and sees it! Isn't that GREAT!

And that, My Friends, it TRUTH YOU CAN BELIEVE IN!

[FairandBalanced08]

How much money is he spending on this crap?

[rwhiteside]

It's rather brilliant, actually, in a weird evil way. My appalachian relatives would look at this ad and think it's Obama's ad, and boy is he full of himself. I'm not sure they'd ever get the satire, or that it was a pro-McCain ad.

Which may well be McCain's point.

Evil! Horrible! Shameless!

Yet it seems to be working. Obama has to do something, because this underhanded negative campaigning on McCain's part is getting him headlines and defining the campaign. You can't just shake your head and think people aren't stupid enough to believe this. They are. And they will.

How on earth do you combat this? Obama is smart enough to figure that out. I'm not. I'm stumped.

[StephenDedalus82]

Rove has been hinting that, if he were running a campaign against Obama, he would seize on the messiah complex BS just as he seized on the windsurfing effeteness of Kerry. I've seen this coming for months (a Rove lieutenant is John McCain's propaganda guy). They're going to keep pounding this until everyone thinks it's the truth. Those throngs of adoring teenagers made me wince in fear of what the Republicans would make of it. Now we know.

[RCLGuard]

I can not believe this is happening.

I can not believe this is the campaign this guy is running.

I can not believe this is 2008 and people let this happen.

I can not believe why everyone in this country isn't pointing at McCain and laughing.

This makes my jaw drop. It makes me ashamed of politics.

[RatgurlSD]

Looks like the Republican party has finally given up. Is this what they mean by "when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging"?

[rsottong]

Problem is, the MSM will play this ad and frame the debate thus: "Is Barack Obama a substance-lacking egomaniac?" And the impression McCain wants to leave is delivered.

Plouffe just sent out a video saying that over 100,000 people donated to the Obama campaign yesterday. How much you want to bet the Britney/Paris ad inspired that? That's the only effective response. Flood the Obama campaign with money. Show McCain what we think of his insult to our intelligence.

[ultramagnetic]

OMG. This is just ridiculous.

[HypeFreeZone]

Wolf Blitzer is already talking about it on CNN. They just can't help themselves, can they?

[mscriblerus]

All right. McCain is saying "People think Obama is Moses, but as a man who knew, respected, and campaigned with Moses, I can say that Senator Obama, you're no Moses."

I wish there was a sure fire way to force the conversations back to McCain's specifics. That whole "comprehensive plan" and "ideas I will share with you in the future" keeps getting a pass. That's what Bush offered and it became obvious fairly soon after that first election that it was all pillow talk. His only real plan was to secure wealth for his base...now that was a mission that was accomplished.

[KNadine]

But is he ready to Lead? YES! I'm sorry, but that's a good ad - FOR OBAMA. If they wanted it to appear negative, they should've added more criticism at the end.