Ad Wars: McCain ACORN Assault - Obama Must Fill In The Blanks

Political communications consultant Mike Hughes, special to OffTheBus, deconstructs the latest campaign ads, frame by frame.

McCain launched a creative and timely web ad recently, attacking Obama for his ties to ACORN, a voter registration organization that is currently under investigation in eight states for fraud. After analyzing the ad's features in more detail, we can see how its use of psychedelic imagery, crime-file cinematography and daunting evidence delivers a persuasive case against Obama. The typically nimble Obama campaign has yet to release a counter-attack to the Acorn charges. Obama's new ad continues to focus on the theme that McCain would rather smear Obama than talk about the economy while addressing McCain's attacks on Obama's supposed seedy connections. Yet Obama's ad ultimately falls short because it doesn't respond to McCain's charges head-on.

McCain "Acorn" Ad (October 10, 2008)

McCain's 90-second spot begins with what looks like crime-file footage as the announcer says "Who is the real Barack Obama?" echoing the battle cry on the campaign trail from McCain and Palin. The announcer's deep ominous voice reminds me of a documentary about a serial killer.

Psychedelic strobes blink in the background throughout the video, giving it a 60's radical undertone. The image of a young Obama with an afro, coupled with the acid trip colors is an attempt by the McCain campaign to subtlety use race to frighten voters. Although we are entering a post-racial society, considering we are on the verge of electing our first black President, Americans do not want a Black Panther running the country. McCain also hopes to exploit underlying concerns that might have been implanted from the Jeremiah Wright controversy.

The commercial then begins to tie Obama to Acorn: "After college, he moved to Chicago. Became a community organizer. There, Obama met Madeleine Talbot, part of the Chicago branch of ACORN. He was so impressive that he was asked to train the ACORN staff."

The ad goes on to say that ACORN bullied banks to give the same types of loans that caused the financial crisis. This sets the table for indicting images from a newscast of police raiding ACORN offices as a reporter's voice is heard saying "There are at least 11 investigations across the country involving thousands of potentially fraudulent ACORN forms."

The McCain camp mocks the Obama camp for attempting to distance its candidate from ACORN, by displaying these damaging facts that the Obama campaign paid ACORN $800,000 to register voters.

The commercial ends with words flashing across the screen: "Bad Judgment. Blind Ambition." McCain's ultimate objective here is to instill apprehension that Obama is too risky to hold the most powerful position in the world.

Obama's "Lose" Ad (October 10, 2008)

Obama's 30-second national cable ad continues to focus on McCain's mistake in saying he can't focus on the economy or he'll lose, and uses an irrefutable quote from the McCain campaign to back up this remark. The ad goes on to attack McCain for focusing on attack ads while Americans lose their jobs and savings.

In response to McCain's attack regarding Obama's relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, this screenshot refutes McCain's statement that Obama launched his first campaign from Ayers's living room. This response seems somewhat weak, like a technicality, and it does not allay overall concerns about Obama's relationship with Ayers.

Obama than cleverly uses McCain's own words against him to respond to an attack about Obama's ties to allegedly corrupt political boss, William Daley. We can see that the commercial also uses an actual screenshot from a McCain ad. It catches McCain in a disingenuous strategy considering he himself said that former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley did "great work."

A picture is worth a thousand words. There is nothing more damning than a photo with the person one is condemning. The commercial ends with Obama's consistent theme as of late -- "With no plan to fix our economy, smears are all McCain has left."

The McCain ad's combination of strong visuals and factual evidence condemning Obama will insert doubt into the mind of any voter. After viewing this commercial, the viewer is left with the impression of a young radical who is not just connected to a fraudulent organization, but helped teach them and fund them to get out the vote. Viewers will wonder how Obama could possibly explain away these blatant connections. Obama's ad is simple, yet clearly spells out the message, once again, that McCain believes his only chance of winning is to smear Obama because McCain is weak on the economy. Yet, Obama presents a flimsy argument against the Ayers attack, not even mentioning his name. If anything, it makes viewer wonder about it even more. Obama needs to come out with a compelling ad explaining the Ayers connection in more detail, as well as the new ACORN problem, because the last thing the Obama camp wants is for voters to fill in the blanks themselves.

Comments

[tuttlemsm]

In the last frame, "Too Risky for America," everybody see the vertical word "Roe"?

[HappinessHacker]

Thanks for your excellent analysis!!!

Hopefully, the American public is getting a real education in media manipulation and they realize how easy the ACORN incident was to create.

All you have to do is pay or place people to create bogus voter registration forms, it's a classic case of well known Republican dirty tricks ops.

That's what the FBI really needs to investigate... if they weren't handcuffed politically.

Happiness Hacker - Atlanta

[kmac23va]

As a note, the McCain campaign are having a press conference on C-SPAN 2 right now about ACORN, and I think afterwards ACORN is holding a presser of their own.

[Miravanguild]

It appears that someone is catching the errors and false and bad registrations are they not? Before the fact, system doing it's job. Most poling places these days you have to show a picture I.D. So most phony registrations are not going to pass muster... So if the voting officals are doing their jobs, it may be a pain to deal with this, but few phony votes if any are going to be cast.. I can see though how this kind of tactic might be used to scare poor people into not going to the poles thinking if ACORN helped them to register, their might be something wrong.. So I think voter repression should also be looked into..

[esteco]

Not sure if this has been discussed in this forum yet, but here is a link to McCain's support of ACORN.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/acorn-mccain-have-you-lost/story.aspx?guid=%7B9DF1C9E0-F0BA-4509-B4EC-AF741171DEAC%7D&dist=hppr

Maybe he should remember who he has supported in the past before he attacks them. But it is McCain, he probably forgot he was ever there!!!

[mky267]

I found the McCain ad mentioned in this article here: http://pcl.stanford.edu/campaigns/2008/

It is a disorienting and well made piece of work, the restlessness has a hypnotic effect on a viewer. It associates Obama's name and his image with feelings of unrest. Fully developed and multi-layered manipulative propaganda and a prime example of the accelaration of the efforts to make one feel uneasy about Obama going into the end game, Scary stuff!

[Michael Hughes - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree with comments regarding Obama's strategy and what he should and should not do. In terms of the quality and effectiveness of his "Lose" ad, however, I don't think he should have made any references to Ayers in the ad , if the strategy is to not even acknowledge that particular smear. But I agree, the polls are showing that Ayers is not hurting Obama - yet.

What does concern me is the ACORN issue and the money trail from the Obama campaign, which can really hurt. My question is: was ACORN representing themselves as a bipartisan group? Did they get federal money? These are important questions they need to answer. A Jake Tapper article is a bit alarming as well about how the Obama campaign responded poorly to this issue:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/being-squirrell.html

[mentortfc]

It would be very easy to plant a worker in the Acorn organization with the sole purpose of creating problems. This would be a classic Karl Rove tactic. The Republican would hire someone to commit fraud and then "discover it." It worked with Dan Rather.

[t mout]

Unless McCain has a souvenir bucket of muddy river water he scooped up when helping clean out destroyed houses of despondent elderly American citizens after Katrina like Acorn did....enough said.

[Toby Barlow - Huffpost Blogger]

HuffPost's Pick

I don't think Obama should defend ACORN. They're a strong organization, they can defend themselves. What Obama should do is attack the Republicans for all the voter intimidation tactics they are using right now.

From Alternet:

"This time, there are already fake flyers mysteriously appearing on the streets of minority areas of Philadelphia, illegal voter purges in numerous states, "caging" tricks, threats of using home foreclosure lists to strike voters from the rolls, and "black box" electronic vote-counting systems under the control of private companies--and we haven't even gotten to election day!"

The fact that so many people are suffering foreclosure is bad enough, adding to that the insult of taking their vote away is even worse.

[lefty74]

I wonder why we don't hear about what is being done regarding these issues? Has the Obama campaign employed lawyers and other staff to be ready on election day to fight these forms of fraud and intimidation tactics? Obama's got a great so-called 'ground game'. I only hope it includes fighting these dirty GOP tactics.

[picard922]

"Bad Judgment. Blind Ambition." Why do all of McCain's pronouncements sound like projection? Oh yes, because they are.

[JHCowboy]

John McCain feels that because of his military royalty background (long line of U.S. military leaders) and going through the hell he did being captured, tortured and imprisoned in Vietnam that he is somehow entitled to be the next U.S. President. He's extremely arrogant and unstable and he not only holds grudges but does all in his power to get revenge if anyone crosses him in any way. He's extremely dangerous for our nation and we need to do all in our power to make sure Barack wins. We cannot rest for one moment during the next 3 weeks. We have got to be on our toes and respond immediately and forcefully to the crap that is being thrown at Barack's campaign.

[kellygrrrl]

even in the McCain ads which try to depict 0bama as scary -- he still looks cool

[ScoobyDoo269]

Hmmm - Obama = Radical

Hmmmm- McCain Maverick = Radical

What's the Difference?

Obama has a Plan

McCain = Same

I want a Radical Change - not a Radical Same

We cannot solve problems by using the same
kind of thinking we used when we created them.

~Einstein ~

Obama is New - Not bitter!

[Icantbelieveher]

Given how McCain's numbers have gone down by his negativity, I don't think that Obama should go on the attack on McCain. And Obama has answered the questions about Ayers. His dismissing this connection tells me that it's not worth answering over and over again.

A guilty man will defend himself over and over again! Obama dismisses these attacks as not worth his time. I do think it's a good tactic! It seems to be working. McCain does look petty, especially since some of us older voters remember his questionable relationships with Charles Keating and G. Gordon Liddy!

[Mewcatone]

Agreed. Plus even if Obama does defend himself against the Ayers attacks, they would still say he was hiding something. There is no way he is every going to give them a satisfying answer.

I thinks he's also showed incredible control. They are trying to throw him off his game with this whole Ayers stuff and it isn't working. If he decides to talk about it, I'm sure he'll simply address the issue and move on.

It's also a waste of time to address the Ayers issue because anyone who says they aren't voting for him because of Ayers, wasn't going to vote for him in the first place. It's best if he just continues to speak to the needs of those who are still undecided.

[bygollymissmolly]

Agreed, he has answered all questions about his association with Ayres. Just because the Republicans don't like his answers does NOT make Obama out to be a liar or someone who is hiding something.

If Obama replied to every McBush attack, that's all he would have time for. He has made the right decision to take the high road.

On the other hand, where are the 527's and when are they going to kick in. Now would be a good time guys.

[AnalyzeIT]

Earth to McCain - please talk about the economy and our troops in Iraq.