TV Ad Wars: McCain Takes His Last Shot(s)
John McCain's latest attack ad plays the Iran card, saying Barack Obama is "dangerously unprepared to be president."
With seven days until Barack Obama likely makes history as the first African American president of the United States, the TV ad wars are in the home stretch. John McCain, out-gunned across the board by Obama's big Internet money, is still pushing the "Joe the Plumber" theme even as he tries to broaden to an argument that Obama is just too dangerous a choice for president.
But he's not going with the Wright Stuff, a rehash of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's seeming anti-American jeremiads played incessantly on cable during the primary, though one 527 committee is trying to stir the embers. And the Bill Ayers attacks are over.
John McCain's new attack ad says America will be very vulnerable under Barack Obama.
The Bill Ayers stuff has been pushed incessantly by the right-wing blogosphere and talk radio. And now it has fallen flat.
I predicted from the beginning that the Ayers attacks wouldn't work. The connection between the presidential frontrunner and the long ago Weather Undergrounder is far more attenuated than the fervid imaginings of the far right had it. And the issues at hand are so much bigger. Like many of us, I could be linked to be both the far right and the far left if someone wanted to play that silly assocation game about my views. The attacks reflected a non-serious view of politics, much less life.
McCain's campaign attacks against Obama for his attenuated relationship with ex-domestic terrorist Bill Ayers have backfired, according to the Republican-owned Rasmussen poll. The numbers show that only 28% of likely voters felt the attacks hurt Obama, 15% had no opinion one way or another, and a whopping 50% felt the attacks actually hurt McCain!
Barack Obama's new TV ad says John McCain is out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time.
So Democrats are poised on the verge of an historic, across-the-board victory. Last week, top Republicans told me they expect not only an Obama victory, but also the loss of 5 to 8 seats in the U.S. Senate and 30-plus in the U.S. House of Representatives. And that was before Alaska Senator Ted Stevens -- McCain running mate Sarah Palin was a co-director of his political action committee -- was convicted on multiple counts of political corruption.
The campaign this week is playing out mostly in longtime red states, where Obama is on the offensive. I wrote last week that Obama's national lead was likely to dip last week, then expand again. It didn't dip last week. There are a few signs it is dipping now. But not much.
John McCain's latest Joe the Plumber ad.
McCain is trying to win Pennsylvania, a blue state where Obama's notorious San Francisco fundraiser "Bittergate" comments hurt him in the primary against Hillary Clinton. But McCain's not Clinton. He has yet to articulate a credible economic message in times of economic turmoil, falling back repeatedly on the tried and true Republican standby that Obama, like all Democrats in Republican campaigns, is a big tax-and-spender. That won't work in Pennsylvania.
What's he doing in Pennsylvania? Trying desperately to get a blue state takeaway to make up for the red states Obama is taking away from him. I've spent time in Pennslvania, and it won't happen.
Meanwhile, Obama is on the offensive in the Mountain West, which is turning for him as Gary Hart hoped it would turn and anticipated would happen for Democrats 20 years ago.And in the Midwest and selected Southern states, most notably Virginia.
Bill Clinton, incidentally, joins Obama on the campaign trail tomorrow in Florida and perhaps elsewhere.
Team McCain is left to play a mixed game of limited offense and a lot of defense. The McCain themes this week seek to paint Obama as closet socialist and McCain as the best commander-in-chief, with McCain belatedly trying to separate himself from the albatross known as Bush/Cheney.
And a helping of fear about what unquestioned Democratic control of the Presidency, the Senate, and the House would mean. In a bad way, of course.
I keep hearing that Tony Rezko will come into play again, but I haven't seen it.
As you can tell, there is no kill shot in the Republican arsenal.
For all the endless rumor-mongering about Obama as a purported "Manchurian candidate," there is no silver bullet to defeat the vampire that haunts the nightmares of the far right. Reality is dawning. And the ad wars are drawing to a not especially dramatic close.
John McCain says the last eight years under President Bush haven't gone so well.
McCain is separating himself from President Bush and Vice President Cheney, speaking to camera in a new ad about how bad the past eight years have been. But it's extraordinarily late in the game for such positioning. That needed to be done last May, when McCain was cleaving to the extraordinarily unpopular White House incumbents so as to up his then anemic fundraising.
Meanwhile, Obama is closing out the campaign with a mix of positive and negative ads.
On the one hand, the campaign has another hard-hitting ad saying that McCain is out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time, hitting the veteran Western senator for his halting response to the financial crisis and close ties to Bush.
Barack Obama speaks to camera in this new two-minute TV ad outlining what he will do as president.
On the other hand, Obama has an unusual new 2-minute ad in which he speaks directly to camera, telling viewers what he will do to jump-start the American economy.
This gets at the fundamental flaw of efforts to paint Obama as a Manchurian candidate. We've seen so much of him that it is hard to imagine that the dank conspiracy theories about him are any more than the fevered imaginings of paranoids eager to believe the worst about someone with a name and a look quite unlike their own.
You can check things out throughout the day on my site, New West Notes.
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Speaking of last shots, I see Palin is using the line "Cut 25% of the defense budget" today.
For those who want a more balanced viewpoint.
http://www
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Yeah, it's not true.
The far right IS the nightmare.
They are scarier with their army of mercenaries, i.e. Blackwater, than anything else.
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It was a politics of delusion.
Obama is the last chance we have to establish a socialist state in America in this generation. He is the only one who truly understands socialism and how to bring it about in this country. Strike off your chains, and get out there and vote. Bring three like-minded workers with you to the polls. The war-mongers MUST NOT turn this election into a defeat for the socialist dream!
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Thanks for the laugh.
Live in SC. So far only had one man stop by my house with a bunch of flyers. Said he was the candidate for some state office. None of the flyers had any party's name on them so I asked him if he belonged to the "maverick" party. He got red in the face, mumbled something and walked off!!!!!
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And Obama was not wildly offin South Carolina.
Still a red state, though, which is why you were targeted.
Until all these Republicans fade into oblivion, the American Way of Life will be under siege by lobbyists, Texas oil billionaires and the oil mafia, the forces of ignorance and intolerance and 500 Hate Radio hosts.
Their drivel and bile permeates all media.
Until this propoganda - underestimated by Progressives - is finally and forever repudiated and discredited, the American Psyche will be afflicted with this cancer
I think George Orwell is somewhere saying, "See? I missed on the date, but my societal forecast was right on target. OBAMA the Manchurian candidate? Now THAT'S some double-spe
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Something like that.
We (in Iowa) got an Ayers "flyer ad" in the mail yesterday.
They're pushing it with robocalls, too. They can be much more tightly targeted, like mail. But not in TV ads, those backfired.
I had a friend once who got a lot of flyers in the mail from this one candidate that she did not like. After receiving flyers and other junk for well over a month, she took one one of the postage paid envelopes that was included, pasted it to a front of a large manila envelope and mailed all the stuff back to them. They paid the postage. .
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Right. This piece is about TV ads. Ayers has been relegated to the twilight of robocalls and mail pieces, which can be targeted in a way to avoid too much public embarrassment.
I'm mad one of the females in the ad said "I'm voting for John McCain because I know if I ask him questions, I'll get straight talk." Does that sound familiar anyone? Is there anyone who is going to tell me that this was not scripted? Let's be serious here folks and for them to use the Biden statement in their ad is just nonsensical. Every major politician and intellectual has said that within the first 8 months of a presidency the president gets tested. There are countless evidence of this, the most notable and most recent being the WTC bombings. That is exactly what Biden pointed out as well, thus we'd need an able leader to deal with the crises. Now how does that equate to Obama being a dangerous candidate? Quoting people out of context just to win an election. Sad.
She might get some straight talk today and because of his maverick nature, she'd get some completely different straight talk tomorrow or the next day. McCain is the Manchurian, not Obama. Didn't they see the movie? (read the book?)
BOOKS!??!?
Republicans do not need books! They have the Bible, and Fox News! Why do they need other books?
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I wrote a long piece about the Manchurian Candidate stuff the other week ...
I still say after weeks and weeks of "talking to the wall, I think" that any Republican voter of at least average intelligence should shriek at the lack of new position, their conduct, their tactics of fear, their blatant lies, LIES about the opponent.
Politics will be politics, BUT McCain has embarrassed, humiliated, and discredited the GOP. All a voter has to do is go to you tube, watch video of his history! He has an awful temper. He changes facts CONSISTENTLY, and with no,NO apparent conscience about it.
You know, another big question mark for GOP would be McCain's BIGGEST first decision and the result, Sarah Palin. It has been nothing but embarrassing, distracting, and upsetting the campaign. They don't like each other for God's sake!! She doesn't know the Constitution, the VP's job, McCain basic tenets and his history in the Senate!!
If Obama had participated in the misleading, hate mongering and plain dishonesty I've seen from McCain and Palin I would HAVE TO reconsider my decision. What kind of trust could I have with him in the Whitehouse?
Thought the country wanted a change of activity from Washington. With those two able to compromise their integrity altogether and participate in character assassination to win an election, why would their conduct be any different? It's amazing to me still.
CAN'T AMERICANS SEE THE FOREST FOR THE TREES??
A Hillary Supporter, now Obama faithful
DCA Cincinnati
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The right-wing base of 40% was augmented enough by fear to get to 46%.
It's funny that McCain would call Obama a "Manchurian Candidate" when that was one of the exact smears Rove threw at him in 2000. I guess he learned well.
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McCain doesn't actually call him that, of course. He merely insinuates something like it and lets imaginations run wild.
It's like McCain keeps throwing a rotten egg boomerang ..........
You gave me a hearty laugh with that comment!
Obama will be ours on Nov. 4 and McCain will be wiping those eggs away!
Obama/Biden 08 and 12
Nothing the (R)eprobates say has to be true. This is the art and heart of propaganda. The MSM obliges by giving false equivalency and parity i.e. a lie told in a negative manner is the same as a truth told in a negative manner because they are both negative. It does not matter that it is a lie only that it is repeated over and over. Confusion is how the truth is maligned and obfuscated.
I find it so ironic that Palin and McCain are pushing the "socialist" line when she governs a state that gets money from oil companies and redistributes it to Alaskans in the form of a several thousand dollar bonus each year.
Palin is a right-wing socialist. Alaska also gets much more money from the federal government than most states.
Maybe they should share it with the other 49 states.
And isn't it interesting how they use terms like "socialist". "left-wing", "anti-American" and even "communist" interchangeably? We have seen this before. In the McCarthy era you were a Communist if you disagreed with anything done in Washington. And typically in Nazi Germany and any countries with a Fascist government you were also labelled as a Communist.
Especially interesting since Fascists and Communists hate each other.
Someone isn't familiar with the hate Hitler spewed against the Communists.
But we wouldn't expect them to actually know this stuff.
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That IS very ironic.
Why doesn't somebody just post the info from 2000 about McCain being the manchurian candidate? He's the manchurain candidate of 1968-style George Wallace race baitors.
I can't imagine what it will be like to have hope again. It's been gone since RFK. That was so long ago. Man
I agree!
Well said. I was in high school when RFK was killed and I have not been enthused about a politician since...un
Nov. 4 is the day to be grateful for----VOTE and let's put McCain behind us.
Obama/Biden!!!!
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40 years ...
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