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July 30, 2008 10:13 PM UTC

New McCain Ad Mocks Obama's "Celebrity"

  • 36 Comments
  • by: redstateblues

A new ad by John McCain that has appeared on the presumptive GOP nominee’s YouTube site criticizes Barack Obama’s fame. Calling him “…the biggest celebrity in the world” and showing pictures of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in succession with images of Obama’s recent European tour, the ad also attacks his stance on lifting the legislative ban on off-shore oil drilling.

The thirty second ad, which can be seen here, also raises an attack that Obama will raise taxes on electricity, with the flash “NEW TAXES” next to Obama’s face, and the chant of “O-BA-MA” by supporters, much like McCain’s most recent attack ad.

No word on if Colorado’s network affiliates will be airing this ad, or if Obama has a response ad ready.

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36 thoughts on “New McCain Ad Mocks Obama’s “Celebrity””

  2. How many ads will we see with strapping buck Obama juxtaposed with young white women?

    I really thought McCain was better than this shit, but he’s sold his soul to the Rove crew.

    1. Who would you prefer to see in the ad?  Beyonce?  Missy Elliott?  Come on…

      Brittany and Paris are famous for one thing: being famous.  You could argue that the first term junior Senator from Illinois is famous for the same reason…

      This was nothing like the Corker’s “call me” ad.  It’s about Obama’s celebrity and the McCain ad shows two of the worlds biggest…gasp…celebrities.  

      1. Sorry, but that’s exactly what it is and the celebrity angle is just a cover to get everyone arguing celebrity while the black man-blonde girl message sinks in.

          1. but to deny that’s what the ad does, because that’s clearly what Rove strategists, including the one heading McCain’s campaign, have done before. It’s always obvious after the election. We don’t have to act baffled and wishy-washy about it during the election this time.

          2. I don’t mean that disrespectfully, nor am I calling you on the carpet to defend your “Blackness” – I don’t believe in that.

            But you seem to have a hard time seeing racial undertones, whether you agree with them or not, it is clear they exist.

            I don’t think that people will see this as clearly as the Harold Ford “Call me” ad. However, to some very narrow minded people, I think they will pick up on quickly.  The good thing is, they were not voting for Obama in first place.

            The ad is bad for a number of reasons:

            1.  Celebrity in America is a good thing.  Ronny Reagan was a celeb, TV and movie star.  His star quality carried him to the White House. Arnold, the terminator Governor, is the biggest celeb in history.  

            2. Showing Obama images that many will see as a positive.  200,000 people cheering for you is hardly a negative, even if they are not Americans.  

            3. it is a stupid attack, not to mention filled with half truths.  Many Americans will see through this and it will turn them off.

            4.  Does John McCain need to reinforce his attack dog mentality?  Everyone knows he has anger and control issues – this is clearly not helping.

            1. John McCain has been a media darling celebrity for 35 years. Maybe he knows what he’s talking about when he says celebrity doesn’t mean leadership.

              The man who created the “call me” ads has been John McCain’s campaign manager. There’s no secret to this strategy.

              Here’s a tip: Watch the commercials with the sound off — that’s the message intended to bypass your critical faculties and go straight to your fears. That’s Political Advertising 101.

              1. They normally call me a Democratic Strategist, today I was listed as a “Blogger for Colorado Pols”.  I got a promotion, I am so proud!

        2. You’ve made some astute observations, but most of us will see this ad in a zip-flip on the tube. I wonder if viewers will skip past the “too up and personal” issue of race and move right on to what might be too obvious in propaganda advertising – placing Obama in the context of an actress who neglected and frightened her children and a rich celeb who went to jail because she apparently thought laws apply to everyone else but her. The context seems too extreme – and a bad gamble on Rove’s part or whoever dreamed this up.  

  3. John Weaver,  for years one of John McCain’s closest friends and confidants, has been in exile since his resignation from McCain’s presidential campaign last year.    With the exception of an occasional interview, he has, by his own account, bit his tongue as McCain’s campaign has adopted a strategy that Weaver believes “diminishes John McCain.”

    With the release today of a McCain television ad blasting Obama for celebrity preening while gas prices rise, and a memo that accuses Obama of putting his own aggrandizement before the country, Weaver said he’s had “enough.”

    The ad’s premise, he said, is “childish.”

    “John’s been a celebrity ever since he was shot down,” Weaver said. “Whatever that means.  And I recall Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush going overseas and all those waving American flags.”

    Weaver remains in contact with senior McCain strategists and, for a while early this year, regularly talked to McCain.

    The strategy of driving up Obama’s negatives “reduces McCain on the stage,” Weaver said.

    http://marcambinder.theatlanti…

  4. I agree 100%. The Tennessee Senate race taught me more about “white fear” than I ever wanted to know. This is absolutely aimed at that demographic that considers a young black guy around young, attractive white females threatening to their culture. It worked for Corker, as he overcame former Rep. Ford’s lead after the add was saturated. I’ve actually been thinking that the reds are a little late starting this. One thing about rove. He loves to take an opponent’s strength and turn it into a liability. While it can be pushed back, it has to be answered asap. The republican strategy includes the “arrogant” or “cocky” theme, also. Funny how the images of the flightsuited “w” on the flight deck off San Diego, strutting on the faux “ranch” in Crawford, and the infamous “bring it on” threat didn’t provoke this “arrogant”,  “cocky” label.  

    1. Just say it: “uppity” or “doesn’t know his place.”

      This is disgusting. It’s not 1968, despite all efforts to recreate it. let’s hope this is the swan song for this reprehensible kind of campaigning.

  5. Dishonest. A newCNN Poll finds the following.

    The poll suggests few of the McCain campaign’s criticisms of Obama’s trip have stuck, especially charges Obama was presumptuously acting as if he had already won the election and claims he nixed a visit with injured troops because members of the media could not accompany him.

    Instead, more than two-thirds of voters surveyed said the trip was appropriate for a presidential candidate, and 72 percent said they think Obama cares about veterans and the troops in Iraq.

    A third of voters polled said they believe Obama is arrogant, about the same number who said that of McCain. That result comes the same day the McCain campaign released a hard-hitting ad that declares Obama is the “biggest celebrity in the world.”  Watch the ad В»

    “There is some danger for McCain in making these charges. Forty percent say he is attacking Obama unfairly, while only 22 percent say Obama is unfairly attacking McCain,” Holland said

    McCain already has a serious temper problem and now his campaign is playing to that weakness. He’s going to be seen as a whiney, deceitful and angry old man.  

  6. Absolutely, RedGreen. “Uppity”, “doesn’t know his place”, and here’s another one….”presumptuous”. Let’s say Senator Obama had not met with the Fed Chairman and the Treasury Secretary and gone to Europe and the Middle East and Europe. Then he’d be “naive”, “inexperienced”, and “underachieving”. The reds will attack him no matter what he does. But the racial component inclusive in their attacks is sneaky, insidious, and very real. Here’s hoping America isn’t one big version of Tennessee.  

  7. Always, always, always call your opponent a racist, because if he weren’t he wouldn’t be disagreeing with your candidate.  

    And keep up your yoga, because someday you may have to really stretch to make that point, but believe in yourself and your race-baiting, and you’ll get there.

    Because it’s always about race.  Except when you’re for the guy.  Then it’s just because you’re smarter than everyone else.

      1. Making Race the issue, rather than making, you know, the issue the issue, is race-baiting, no matter what color your skin is.  

        The argument is that Obama’s only famous for being famous, famous people like that can be idiots, and he’s an heir to Roosevelt and Kennedy in the same way Paris is an heir to Conrad.  

        But because the Obama people don’t want to get in the weeds of pointing out why it’s a faulty accusation, they instead default to accusing McCain of being a secret racist.

        Which is no more the truth than Obama being a secret Muslim.

        And the truly absurd thing is that in calling his opponent a racist, Obama is praised for being such a high road candidate.  

            1. ….I wish what?  That Obama called McCain a racist?  I’d never heard that before, much less wished that.  But Yokel said it happened, so I wanted to know more details.  

              Don’t even get me started on all my wishes for the world.

    2. I am curious why McCain used these specific images.

      1. Paris amd Britney? that is so 2006

      2. Britney sounded much more like McCain with regard to supporting Bush (see above)

      3. 8 years ago McCain bragged about hanging out with the performers at the MTV video awards: one of which, Britney Spears.

      Why not use the stars they usually point to, the Sean Penn’s and Alec Baldwins, when ridiculing Obama’s celebrity?  Why 2 young attractive blonde women?  With the sound off looks a little like the anti Ford “call me” ad.

      1. 1.  Obama is famous for being famous.

        2.  Celebrities can be idiots – here are two examples.

        3.  Therefore, Obama can be an idiot, too, and still be famous.  

        4.  Therefore, if he’s running for President and not a Peoples’ Choice Award, we need substance from him, not just adoring crowds.

        Also, it’s politically acceptable – you don’t want to lose legions of voters who are fans of any movie stars you target, so you pick the ones everyone who matters can agree on.

        The only people who would be mad at the implication are people like this:

        And they’re not exactly what you call “likely voters.”

  8. No Shit!

    But Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, had a snappy answer. “Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” he said. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”

    The retort was, we must say, not only contemptible, but shrewd. It puts the sin for the racial attack not on those who made it, but on the victim of the attack.

    It also – and we wish this were coincidence, but we doubt it – conjurs up another loaded racial image.

    The phrase dealing the race card “from the bottom of the deck” entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson saga. Robert Shapiro, one of Mr. Simpson’s lawyers, famously declared of himself, Johnny Cochran and the rest of the Simpson defense team, “Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”

    At first I didn’t think “celebrity” was racial–but when coupled with this response by the McCain campaign echoing one of the most divisive racial moments in the last 20 years now I am convinced.

    http://theboard.blogs.nytimes….

    1. Who’d’ve thought we’d have to wait until the last day of July to get the O.J. comparisons?

      This country has truly gone insane and deserves whatever leaders it gets.  

  10. Obama says ‘they are going to going to try to scare you…I don’t look like the faces on the $ bill”

    Well the McCain Campaign has already mocked Obama by puting Obama’s face on the $100 bill–a month ago.

    Was the McCain campaign racist when they put Obama’s face on the $100?  I don’t think so, but according to McCain’s way of thinking it was. Who knew.

  11. In fact, as recently as July 11, 2008, John McCain’s own website included this line from an article about one of his 2007 appearances on David Letterman:

    “A political celebrity, McCain is considered a top contender for the nomination.”

    http://rpayne.blogspot.com/200…

    McCain’s website has since been scrubbed.

    1. ABC had some questions about celebrity yesterday:

      Which presidential candidate hosted Saturday Night Live (hint — the musical guests were The White Stripes)?

      Which one had cameos on “24” and “Wedding Crashers”?

      Whose wife secretly got her pilot’s license and owns a jet?

      Who is pals with Warren Beatty?

      Whose daughter is friends with Heidi from MTV’s The Hills?

      Whose wife once told Vogue, explaining the purchase of a 7th or 8th house, this one a beach house, “When I bought the first one, my husband, who is not a beach person, said, ‘Oh this is such a waste of money; the kids will never go. Then it got to the point where they used it so much I couldn’t get in the place. So I bought another one.”

      Whose family credit cards have been known to ring up more than $500,000 in charges in one month?

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