Obama 'biggest celebrity in world' but...
The Swamp — by Jill Zuckman Sen. John McCain's campaign is offering voters a new way of looking at the Democratic nominee, calling Sen. Barack Obama "the biggest celebrity in the world" in a television ad being released later today on national cable networks and local television markets in key states. The ad pivots quickly, however, from its not-so-complimentary compliment to question what policies Obama has to offer and whether he is prepared to be commander-in-chief. "But, is he ready to lead? With gas prices soaring, Barack Obama ...

New McCain ad portrays Obama as celeb not leader
Jonathan Martin's Blog — Seeking to both elevate and diminish his rival's status, John McCain is up with a new ad featuring images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears but declaring that they take a back seat to Barack Obama. "He's the biggest celebrity in the world," says the announcer of Obama, set to images from his massive Berlin speech. "But is he ready to lead?" The McCain campaign recognizes the broad and undeniable appeal Obama has won, so their new tack is to not try to compete with it but to mock it. This ad is part of the sharper message that they're intent on driving against their ...

McCain: 'Celeb'
Ben Smith's Blog — The McCain camp keeps bringing the mockery, and tries to use Obama's celebrity status against him. Celebrity is, indeed, a key axis of this campaign. Both men are bona fide celebrities, but Obama's wattage offers both an opportunity -- see the cover of People -- and a risk. The question is whether he can keep finding ways (notably, access) to keep the celebrity press in the business of making people feel closer to him, in the Bonnie Fuller model, or whether he becomes  -- as this ad portrayes him -- a distant, hard to identify with, figure. ALSO: There's a claim in the ad that Obama ...

New McCain Ad: Obama Is A Skanky Blonde Bimbo
Ace of Spades HQ — New McCain Ad: Obama Is A Skanky Blonde Bimbo Obama=Britney and Paris? If they are going to try to tie Obama to a celebrity, perhaps Ludacris would have been an option.

"Celeb"
Hotline On Call Part Deux — Another negative TV spot from John McCain's camp. This one notes that Barack Obama is "the biggest celebrity in the world," and features footage from Obama's Berlin speech. But a female narrator asks, "Is he ready to lead?" The spot accuses Obama of opposing offshore drilling and promising to raise taxes on electricity. Narrator: "Higher taxes, more foreign oil, that's the real Obama." Script For "Celeb" (TV :30) ANNCR: He's the biggest celebrity in the world. But, is he ready to lead? With gas ...

McCain Targets Obama’s Celebrity-Like Popularity in New TV Spot
The Page by Mark Halperin — The ad criticizes Obama on offshore drilling and taxes, while using images from his speech to 200,000 in Berlin to imply he’s out of touch with American families. “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world. But, is he ready to ...

John McCain Watch: Barack Obama is a “CELEB”
FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog — John McCain’s latest Television Ad: “Celeb.” Team McCain released a new television ad today featuring Barack Obama as a “CELEB.” The Script: ANNCR: He’s the ...

Obama, Paris, Britney, and Brangelina
Michelle Malkin — My syndicated column this week riffs on the Brangelina-fication of the Obamas post I did the other day. Read the column here ; original post here . Looks like the McCain camp was on the same wavelength. The McCain camp and I on the same page for once? Yes, it’s true! They released an ad called “Celeb” mocking Obama as the biggest, emptiest celebrity in the world and taking on Obama’s opposition to offshore drilling: Good stuff. Well, except for the part about McCain’s own weak, flip-flop-flippy record on drilling. Sigh.

New McCain Ad Attacks Obama As A "Celebrity"
TPM Election Central — The McCain campaign is up with a new attack ad about Obama's trip abroad that refers to him as the "biggest celebrity in the world" -- a tag that presumably isn't meant as a compliment... It's another effort to "create a narrative" (today's euphemism of choice) of Obama as puffed-up and presumptuous. The McCain camp says the ad is running on "national cable" and in "key states," which strongly suggests that the target of this ad is again the national media, which is being counted on to amplify the McCain message for him. But is using "celebrity" ...

Is Obama the Paris Hilton of politics?
RIGHTWINGSPARKLE — Like Paris, he looks good, but there isn't much underneath. I don't know how effective this ad is. But it is true that "celebrity" is what Obama is all about now.

New McCain ad: “Celeb”
Hot Air » Top Picks — New McCain ad: “Celeb” posted at 11:59 am on July 30, 2008 by Allahpundit Send to a Friend | printer-friendly I was all set to hate it per the Drudge teaser about cameos from Paris and Britney, but it’s actually surprisingly savvy. This is the third ad in nine days to spoof the cult of Obama but the first one to employ it to any useful end, pairing it with the shots of celebutante nitwits to make him look like a “famous for being famous” lightweight per the hot-button coup de grace. The true stroke of brilliance, though, is how it plays the media. Team Maverick is very shrewdly trying ...

McCain Plays Age, Gender, Race and Sexuality Cards At Once
Open Left - Front Page — The McCain campaign has just played an entire campaign's worth of identity politics in a single ad. At the beginning of this latest bit of respectful campaigning, Obama is compared to Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears: ...

"Celeb"
The Corner on National Review Online — [image] [image] NRO BLOG ROW | THE CORNER | ARCHIVES SEARCH E-MAIL PRINT RSS STAY SANE THROUGHOUT 2008: SUBSCRIBE TO NR (50% OFF!) HERE . [image] Wednesday, July 30, 2008 [image] “Celeb” [ Rich Lowry ] New McCain ad hits on the weird cultish aspect of the Obama campaign. 07/30 12:16 PM [image] [image] [image] © National Review Online 2008. All Rights Reserved. Home | Search | NR / Digital | Donate | Media Kit | Contact Us This page loaded in 0.007001 seconds. ...

McCain's Paris Hilton-Britney Spears Ad (VIDEO)
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — There's a fine line between smart and clever, and a similar border between clever and stupid, and John McCain's campaign ads keep on standing on all the wrong sides. In their desperate attempts to undo the success of the overseas trip that would probably have never happened if the McCain campaign hadn't dared the Obama team to take it in the first place, McCain's ad people have decided to attempt to try to play Obama's popularity as a bad thing - comparing the candidate to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. (Which is of real benefit to Spears and Hilton!) But even beyond the numb-nutted concept behind this ad, look at ...

McCain Ad Links Paris Hilton, Britney Spears To Obama
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — The McCain campaign is out with the latest in a string of sharply negative advertisements, this time mocking Barack Obama as a self-important celebrity along the likes of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. In a 30-second spot that focuses absolutely zero attention on McCain himself, the Arizona Republican's campaign starts with something of a backhanded compliment for their competitor. "He's the biggest celebrity in the world," a narrator says, over chants of "Obama, Obama." The screen then shifts to shots of the two aforementioned female pop icons amidst ...

New McCain Ad Taunts Obama's "Celeb" Status
The Atlantic Politics Channel — A new ad from Sen. John McCain mocks Obama's adoring reception overseas but contends that he has no solutions for problems here at home. It will air as part of the campaign rotation in CO, IA, MI, MO, NV, NH, NM, OH, PA, VA and WI. ANNCR: He's the biggest celebrity in the world. But, is he ready to lead? With gas prices soaring, Barack Obama says no to offshore drilling. And, says he'll raise taxes on electricity. Higher taxes, more foreign oil, that's the real Obama. JOHN MCCAIN: I'm John McCain and I approved this message. McCain manager RIck Davis will host a conference ...

Barack meets Brittney, part 2
Pundit Review — The McCain campaign is out with a new ad mocking the Cult of Obama. Barack Meets Brittney, part one The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank is also snarking over Obamamania, “ President Obama Continues Hectic Victory Tour ...

New McCain Ad Mocks Hussein With Britney & Paris Hilton
Pat Dollard | Young Americans —

Britney, Paris, Barack
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — By Patrick Appel McCain keeps attacking (Obama's attempts to hit back are less than inspired): Ben Smith's thoughts: Celebrity is, indeed, a key axis of this campaign. Both men are bona fide celebrities, but Obama's wattage offers both an opportunity -- see the cover of People -- and a risk. The question is whether he can keep finding ways (notably, access) to keep the celebrity press in the business of making people feel closer to him, in the Bonnie Fuller model, or whether he becomes  ...

McCain’s New Ad Compares Obama To Britney Spears, Paris Hilton
Firedoglake — McSame's promise to run an honorable campaign is holding up about as well as his wedding vows to his first wife. His new campaign video can be roughly translated as "Obama is a girly weak vapid silly ditzy airhead, who likes to go shopping and do ...

How low can McCain go?
Political Animal — In case there were any lingering doubts, we’ve officially made the transition from Silly Season to Stupid Season. Here’s the McCain campaign’s new TV ad, for example, that reinforces the obvious fact that anyone who still respects John McCain as a credible man of character simply isn’t paying attention. I’m pretty comfortable, at this point, describing John McCain as the single most ridiculous major party presidential nominee of the modern political era. This ad is so spectacularly inane, it’s hard to watch it without ...

McCain Ad: Celeb
Real Clear Politics - TIME.com — Britney Spears. Paris Hilton. Barack Obama. Is McCain's new ad effective or is the explicit comparison so far fetched it's fall under its own weight? UPDATE: The Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor... ...

Hullabaloo — Miscegenation Dogwhistle Watch by dday Wow, this is just transparent. There's no reason to include Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in this ad. None. It hangs on the word "celebrity" being included, which means it could have just as well been Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Anyway, all the footage is from Obama's Berlin speech, not the red carpet. This is absolutely meant to juxtapose images of white women with images of a black man. They even dissolve into one another! Josh Marshall ...

Obama Gets 'Celebrity Treatment' in New McCain Ad
The Caucus — July 30 0 comments Obama Gets ‘Celebrity Treatment’ in New McCain Ad A new McCain campaign ad puts Barack Obama in the company of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. July 30 0 comments Obama Claims ‘Wild Bill’ Heritage in a Challenge to McCain The Democratic candidate jokes about a family legend while on the stump. July 30 275 comments Inside Professor Obama’s Classroom Examine Barack Obama’s University of Chicago course materials and join legal experts in a discussion about Mr. Obama’s years as a law professor. Updated. July 30 79 comments The Early Word: Going Negative Senator John McCain has been ...

Shots from the Show 7/30
Tammy Bruce — **This post will be updated throughout the show** President Bush signed the monstrous housing bailout bill. He did so 'quietly.' The man has so little character left he's now apparently willing to do things for which he's ashamed. Just pathetic. Here are some details of the bill. In addition to baling out renters who thought it would be fun to be homeowners, it also, ridiculously, makes it even easier for people to buy homes who can't afford to do so, including $7500 in free money for first-time home buyers. Let me say, if you needs free money from the Fed to buy ...

Axelrod Indignant About McCain Ad
The Page by Mark Halperin — Obama’s chief strategist chastises McCain on MSNBC for his TV ad calling Obama a celebrity and flashing images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. “It makes you wonder who’s behind all this because this isn’t the John McCain we expected.” Watch ...

No More Mister Nice Blog — MAUREEN DOWD PENS HER FIRST AD FOR THE McCAIN CAMPAIGN I had no idea the Times let its columnists moonlight this way. Watch the first five seconds of the ad, just as the announcer says, "He's the biggest celebrity in the world": Yikes. Yup, he's not just a celebrity -- he's a girl celebrity. Because being respected by non-Americans makes your penis fall off. Talking Points Memo says the message is that Obama is a "puffed-up dandy." That's one way of putting it -- effeteness and effeminacy all at once. I'm ...

McCain's New Ad Likens Obama to Britney and Paris
44 — Barack Obama McCain's New Ad Likens Obama to Britney and Paris By Garance Franke-Ruta Is John McCain calling Barack Obama a dumb blonde? The man who recently graced the cover of People magazine with his equally photogenic wife and daughters is today the subject of a new McCain campaign ad that alternates images of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and epic celebrity disasters Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, who are better known for their crotch-flashing antics and legal troubles than political acumen. "He's the biggest celebrity in the world," the ad's narrator says. "But, is he ready to lead? With gas prices ...

Obama Racism/Muslim/Unpatriotic/Scary Black Dude Watch, #71
Shakesville — Via dday at Hullabaloo, who files this under "Miscegenation Dogwhistle Watch," comes this new John McCain advert: Says dday, quite rightly: There's no reason to include Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in this ad. None. It hangs on the word "celebrity" being included, which means it could have just as well been Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Anyway, all the footage is from Obama's Berlin speech, not the red carpet. This is absolutely meant to juxtapose images of white women with images of a black man.Which is not ...

Keep The Money In America
Classical Values — Keep The Money In America This is a McCain ad which echoes my latest post on why drilling for oil is a good thing and will have good effects almost immediately: It's A Zero Sum Game ...

Obama is a celebrity
Rathergate.com — Paris, Britney, or Obama? Which one uttered the following: 1. “The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff.” 2. “The way I see it, you should live everyday like its your birthday.” 3. “Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference.” Britney spake quote one, Paris quote two, and Obama is responsible for the third. Here is the McCain ad:

Britney Camp Declines Response To McCain Ad
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — What does Britney Spears think about being included along with Paris Hilton in John McCain's latest political ad? A representative from the 42West public relations firm declined to make a substantive comment to the Huffington Post, saying only, "why would we want to get Britney Spears involved in presidential politics?" Sane enough. Rick Davis, perhaps you can answer that one?

McCain, RNC Attack Ads Scrape The Bottom Of The Barrel
Crooks and Liars — The above attack ad “What An Obama Ad Might Look Like In Berlin”  (warning, this video is awful) from the RNC is, as C&L contributer Jamie put it — sick.  The ad is billed as a parody, but as with pretty much every attempt ...

Paris Hilton, Britney Spears bounce through McCain ad on glam Obama
Top of the Ticket — All right, now we're getting somewhere. In the middle of the summer presidential doldrums just when the meaingless premature polls are jumping all over the place and we're all confronted with possibly having to think about Social Security policies, along comes the John McCain campaign with the nicest breeze. It's just issued a new ad called "Celebs" and it's designed to link what's-his-name the global god on the other side with that vacuous Hollywood crowd that comes out at night to do strange things for the papparazzi. Hey, if you're not glamorous, make fun of ...

"He's the biggest celebrity in the world... O-BA-MA... O-BA-MA..."
Althouse — He's a big celebrity, like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton... and gas prices are terrible.... get it? Being really famous and popular often goes along with being an empty nitwit, so if Obama is famous and popular, he's probably an empty nitwit. And gas prices are terrible. ∴ McCain. It's logic! ...

Required Reading
Weekly Standard Blog — 1) From Gallup.com, “Presidential Race Tightens to 4 Points” by some guy who works for Gallup The Ego has landed! A mere three days ago, Barack Obama sat comfortably perched atop a nine point lead in the Gallup tracking poll. Now it’s down to four. Rasmussen shows an even tighter race. In Rasmussen’s tracking numbers, Obama’s six point lead of four days ago has shrunk to two. And let’s not forget the notorious Gallup non-tracking poll which showed McCain with a four point lead. True, that one was an obvious outlier and as responsible analysts we should ignore the outliers. But the big picture is ...

Obama On McCain's "Celeb" Ad
Hotline On Call Part Deux — Barack Obama, boarding his bus after a stop at The Bell Restaurant in Lebanon, MO, answers a reporter's question about John McCain's new TV ad, "Celeb": "You know, I don't pay attention to John McCain's ads. Although I do notice that he doesn't seem to have anything to say very positive about himself. He seems to only be talking about me. You need to ask John McCai what he's for, not just what he's against."

Obama: McCain “Seems to Only Be Talking About Me”
The Page by Mark Halperin — Responding to McCain’s new “Celeb” attacking him, the Senator accuses his opponent of going negative. Speaking briefly to reporters in Missouri, says “I don’t pay attention to John McCain’s ads,” but then says: ...

MSNBC’s Mitchell Defends Obama Against McCain Ad
NewsBusters.org - Exposing Liberal Media Bias — During the 1 p.m. hour of the July 30 edition of MSNBC’s “News Live,” host Andrea Mitchell once again defended Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), this time in regards to Sen. John McCain’s newest TV ad tagging Obama as a celebrity that isn’t ready to lead America. During an interview with the Arizona Republican’s senior policy advisor Nancy Pfotenhauer, Mitchell asked: “Tell me about the ad and the reasoning behind [the ad]. Why Paris Hilton? Why Britney Spears? It does seem that you're trying to demean Barack Obama.” Later, when Pfotenhauer asserted that McCain has proven he’s a leader and has ...

She's Not Heavy, and She Ain't My Sister
Booman Tribune — I understand Josh and Duncan's outrage, but Britney and Paris are not my sisters. Would it be presumptuous of me to point out that John McCain is running the most embarrassingly bad campaign in modern electoral history? Get off my lawn!!

Obama's response was funny?
RedState: Conservative News and Community — I dunno, Allahpundit. I mean, the Celebrity ad was pretty good. Not the best thing EVER, but pretty good: ...but this response was... well, to be honest, it kind of droned. I guess that I was expecting something a little more punchy, a little less press release-like, and a whole lot less whiny. I know this is going to sound heretical and everything, but the Obama campaign doesn't actually seem to be all that good at making campaign ads. It's like George Lucas and Star Wars: all of the really cool stuff these days is ...

Videos of the Day: Do You Want Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in the White House? How 'Bout Hasselhoff?
Debbie Schlussel — By Debbie Schlussel Here's how I'd have ended this ad: Just curious: When he gets to the White House, will he * bring one of Paris Hilton's hair extension kits? * fight with K-Fed over the kids and date a Muslim photog hanger-on-er? This one is better, with the Baywatch dude:

New McCain ad portrays Obama as a celebrity
Sister Toldjah — I rarely post campaign ads, but this one was just too good to pass up: Note the brief images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears at the beginning as the ad tries to portray Obama as a more a celebrity than presidential candidate.   I think the ad’s pretty on point, but apparently I’m just not “getting it” because, according to liberal Josh Marshall, this ad has racist undertones in it because it …  features white promiscuous women: I note with interest today, John McCain’s new tactic ...

Bigot-Bait Twofer
d r i f t g l a s s — Far from being merely tawdry, weird and one-dimensionally racist, I find Senator McSame’s ad to be a small gem of malevolent efficiency. Because it plugs Barack Hussein Obama into not one but two of those ancient, bone-deep, contemptible cultural stereotypes that come so easily and naturally to what once might have been thought of as the Floyd Brown/ Lee Atwater /Karl Rove wing of the Republican Party, but is now known simply as…The Republican Party. Much consciousness has been righteously raised about Senator McSame’s weirdly ...

Which Ad is More Effective?
Discourse.net — Which ad is more effective? This McCain ad trying to link Obama to sleazy and brainless bimbettes (oh, and taxes and dependence on foreign oil) … …or this anti-McCain ad from the independent ProgessiveAccountability.org (which probably won’t get as much attention), in which McCain and Brittany turn out to have the same view of George Bush? Incidentally, it may not be irrelevant to note that McCain hired the very guy who ...

Celeb #1: Obama As Sexual Predator
BAGnewsNotes — Excuse me if I'm a little late to the table on the McCain Celeb video.  I was seeing patients most of the day. I'm still working on a post with my primary take.  In the meantime, I wanted to say that I liked Rick's take on the Nazi/Riefenstahl parallel, and I agree with Josh that McCain's video hit man is playing heavily on racist  allusions to sexual promiscuity and rape. If you study the individual frames, in fact, you'll see how the fades juxtaposing Obama and Britney and Obama and Paris Hilton are virtually identical. In each, Obama -- ...

The McCain Ad Strategy
Sound Politics — The McCain Ad Strategy A couple recent ads from John McCain's campaign have drawn much fire from the MSM, which has declared their content unfair and too snarky. First, the latest one: Now, the precursor with a similar theme: These ads turn comfortable conventional wisdom on its ear. Indeed, the lovable maverick of 2000 would never say such things about the Second Coming Barack Obama. Yet, this election only turns John McCain's way if he pops the protective bubble of Obama's celebrity. This will grate on some people, even some Republicans like former McCain advisor John Weaver ...

Celeb #2: Obama's Explosive Appeal
BAGnewsNotes — I think we are being played if -- in deconstructing "Celeb," the McCain Obama-attack video -- we go so far as unearth and analyze the allusions to racist sexual stereotypes but overlook the possible allusions to violence itself.  Here's where I actually think this video is the most terrifying, and insidious.  At the surface level, the message is that Obama is nothing but a celebrity, an idol, a cultural phenomenon, right?  In fixing the viewer absolutely on that premise, the prompting is to see the incessant flashes in the video as attributable to Obama the paparazzi magnet and Kodak ...

Oh, Josh.
RedState: Conservative News and Community — Tell me that you had to drink half a bottle of whiskey to numb the pain of writing that. Because, really, the stupidity of the article below is crystallizing at the bottom of the glass. I note with interest today, John McCain's new tactic of associating Barack Obama with oversexed and/or promiscuous young white women. (Via Jake Tapper, who submitted this without comment, except to casually deflate Marshall's clumsy attempt to link this to the Ford ad*; then again, given that Jake had previously eviscerated the usual Democratic attempts ...

How desperate is McCain?
BlondeSense — How desperate is McCain? Comparing Obama to Britney and Paris in a campaign commercial. That's the best he can do? feh. I'd fire my PR firm if I was the maverick. Dirty politics and smear campaigns only make he who does the smearing look like a fool. No wonder Obama is more popular than McCain.

Pants on Fire III
Matthew Yglesias — Consortium of Ohio newspapers rates this ad a zero out of ten on the accuracy scale: Describing Barack Obama's support for a cap and trade plan as a tax on electricity when McCain is also trying to get credit for breaking with Bush and supporting a cap and trade plan is doubleplus good.

McCain Finds A Line Of Attack On Barry, Grey Lady Not Happy
Pirate's Cove — But, the NY Times still went ahead an ran the article: McCain Tries to Define Obama as Out of Touch  After spending much of the summer searching for an effective line of attack against Senator Barack Obama, Senator John McCain is beginning a newly aggressive campaign to define Mr. Obama as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency. Those of us here in the starboard-o-sphere have been saying that for the better part of 9 months. On Wednesday alone, the McCain campaign released a new advertisement suggesting — and not in a good way — that Mr. Obama ...

McCain Finds A Line Of Attack On Barry, Grey Lady Not Happy
Stop The ACLU — But, the NY Times still went ahead an ran the article: McCain Tries to Define Obama as Out of Touch After spending much of the summer searching for an effective line of attack against Senator Barack Obama, Senator John McCain is beginning a newly aggressive campaign to define Mr. Obama as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency. Those of us here in the starboard-o-sphere have been saying that for the better part of 9 months. On Wednesday alone, the McCain campaign released a new advertisement suggesting — and not in a good way — that Mr. Obama was a celebrity along the lines of Britney Spears and Paris ...

“What Happened, Cindy?”
Comments from Left Field — John Amato has the Obama campaign’s latest ad, responding to John McCain’s two recent attack ads, here and here. It’s not just Obama supporters who are criticizing McCain’s recent ads: 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 ...

The Hysterical Bitch Offensive
pandagon.net - we are the public option — It says something about misogyny and presidential politics that one of the most sexist attacks thus far has been launched against the male Democratic candidate...and that it’s considered just a “tough” ad that, through watching cable news seems to be mainly about whether or not Britney Spears should be involved in politics.  (Apparently, all those post-primary investigations of sexism against Hillary Clinton got stuck the same place all the fact checkers did.) McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds: “This is a typically superfluous response from Barack Obama. Like most ...

Leave Barrack Alone!
Mudville Gazette — Recently, John McCain put out an ad attacking Barack Obama for his celebrity, comparing him to Britney Spears. Slate V imagines what online video backlash would look like… How would an Obama fan as devoted as the “Leave Britney Alone” guy react to attacks against Obama? Thanks Jennifer

About that Ad
Weekly Standard Blog — As you know, I haven’t exactly established myself as a robotic defender of the McCain campaign. Thus, in the spirit of a very minor league Nixon going to an even more minor league China, I will be the first member of the right wing press to unequivocally defend the McCain ad that compares Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Former McCain aide John Weaver has settled some old scores and called the ad childish and lamented the campaign’s “tomfoolery.” As to the ad’s purported puerility, I’ll stick to assessing its effectiveness while ...

Brainster's Blog — If You Hear a Dog Whistle.... Odds are good it's because you're a dog. Uber-liberals like Josh Marshall think this new McCain ad is racist: Why? Well because it shows images of Obama along with the flower of demure young femininity in the persons of Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears. Toss in some phallic landmarks and it should be obvious what the message is: Don't elect Obama or else he'll have sex with the sluttiest white gals around! One obvious problem occurs to me. Most politicians only target people who are undecided. Does anybody really think that McCain needs to target racists? I mean, how many of them are likely ...

Why Didn’t the RNC Run the “Celebrity” Ad?
The Next Right — Since the McCain campaign released their Celebrity spot yesterday and taken a more aggressive tone overall there’s been a huge amount of second guessing from the pundit class and politicos like John Weaver and Mike Murphy. The gist of their critique has been that McCain is diminishing his own image by going too negative too early to the exclusion of his own message. How to attack the opponent without looking “mean” is a classic campaign problem and there’s a classic answer – when possible, use surrogates. ...

Political Ad Watch - The Hypocrisy of Celebrity
The Moderate Voice — [youtube] [/youtube] Can someone get John McCain’s video production staff on the line for me? I think they owe me a byline on their latest ad attacking Barack Obama. Last week, in the aftermath of Obama’s German speech, I wrote a column entitled “The Political Pop Star” whose last line made a connection to the current negative connotation of celebrity in our society and it reads: “Initially, pop stars are interesting to watch and attract a lot of media attention. Unfortunately, some of them go crazy and act a bit strange. Wasn’t Michael Jackson called the ...

Another Classic Blunder From McCain
The Great Plains Observer — The McCain camp goes third grade with their latest attack ad that tries to mock Barack Obama and his perceived Paris Hilton/Brittany Spears like celebrification. And all he accomplishes is pissing off some of his largest donors, none other than Paris’s ...

Hiltons Not Happy with McCain
The American Mind — Even better than ticking off Team Obama, Sen. John McCain’s “Celeb” ad ticked off the Hilton family. Too bad they’ve given a lot of money to McCain: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems that the new McCain ad criticizing Obama for being a celebrity has ruffled some unintended feathers. I, for one, quite liked the ad, but I hear whispers from the inner campaign staff that the phone was burning off the hook today with calls from Paris Hilton’s grandfather, William Barron Hilton (co-chair of the Hilton Hotel empire), furious that the McCain ad drew an ...

"Comparing him to Obama, though, I LOVE the big old lug"
sisu — Chelsea Chamber of Commerce automobiles go tire to tire with earth-moving equipment across the street at Eastern Salt as respectable local business people off on a cruise of Boston Inner Harbor embrace for a day the "ephemerality, cacophony, multiplicity and ...

Cindy McCain: "My Husband Is Absolutley Opposed To Any Negative Campaigning At All"
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — In a recently unearthed clip of Cindy McCain she makes the claim "none of this negative stuff, you won't see that come out of our side at all." This statement would prove untrue, as the Senator would release not, one, not two, not three, but four negative ads. Watch Mrs. McCain and the negative ads below: ...

McCain’s Faustian Bargain Projected On Obama With New Ad
Firedoglake — As predicted when Steve Schmidt, a Rove disciple, was promoted to campaign manager, McCain's going negative on Obama with his new ad. The line is that Obama is just a celebrity; an empty suit and this is only the opening salvo. The ad is horribly executed (the images ...

McCain Ad Repercussions
Moonbattery — Once the McCain campaign compared Obama to other puerile, morally vacuous celebrity media creations like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in this ad… …this became inevitable: HuffPo reveals that the McCain ad ...

John McCain’s New Ad Leaves A Mark
The Sundries Shack — So it looks like John McCain hit Barack Obama right in his sensitive spot: his ego. McCain’s latest ad puts Obama right up there with all the other attention-hungry, vain celebrities like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Obama, for his part, sniffed haughtily and pretty much reaffirmed the ad’s main point, which is that it’s Barack Obama’s world and we’re all just living in it. “I don’t pay attention to John McCain’s ads, although I do notice he doesn’t seem to have anything very positive to say about himself,” Mr. Obama said. ...

Hollywood Babies Whine About McCain 'Celeb' Ad
Tammy Bruce — McCain gets 1000 extra points for causing Hollywood MalNars to pout about his ad calling B. Hussein a celebrity, not a leader. It's about time he started to irritate someone other than us. John McCain ad irritates many in Hollywood The celebrity backers of Barack Obama say they are not like Paris and Britney. To Hollywood, it smacked of desperation. That's why the reaction to a new John McCain ad attempting to portray Barack Obama as a kind of mindless celebrity -- likening him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears -- drew collective yawns and shrugs of irritation from ...

Now, Paris Hilton's rich gramps is reported steamed at John McCain
Top of the Ticket — Just a short quick update on this crucial Paris Hilton political business so that the half of the globe now in darkness can go to bed in peace and the light of wisdom. And we can all get on with Friday come daylight. Late word Thursday night -- not surprising but late nonetheless -- that the Hilton family is rather unhappy with the campaign of Sen. John McCain for including its scion, P.H., in its controversial and therefore successful political campaign ad somehow attempting to link two famous or infamous female celebrities (Britney Spears is the ...

Friday McBush Bashing
Discourse.net — Although superficially this was a better week than last week’s disaster, since McCain’s attack ads shaped a good bit of the campaign narrative, I’d argue that in retrospect this week may turn out to be the one that the McCain campaign jumped the shark. The negative ads were so untrue and undignified that even the national press started to notice. Which means that if this continues McCain is going to have trouble with his base. Kos, McCain’s Campaign: So Dumb, We Had to Check to Make Sure It Was Real NYT, McCain can’t count on carrying ...

McCain “Proud” Of Paris Hilton/Britney Ad - Paris’ Father Big McCain Contributor - With Vid
Pat Dollard | Young Americans — Top Of The Ticket; If a certain heir to a hotel-based fortune is rethinking his support of John McCain, it will be understandable. Contributors to McCain’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination included Rick Hilton. In fact, Hilton was so enthusiastic about his candidate of choice that, The Times’ Tina Daunt reports, federal records show he donated twice as much as the law allows (the campaign returned the excess). Now, of course, daughter Paris Hilton is the costar (along with Britney Spears) in a controversial new McCain ad ...

"Locked up in modes that surely have little interest to voters"
sisu — Not unlike the editors of the Wall Street Journal, Baby Cakes — outside on the lawn early morning, locked in a squirrel-monitoring mode — has little interest in presidential dog-and-pony shows. "Both men have locked up in modes that ...

Why McCain hit back on race the way he did
Jonathan Martin's Blog — See this NYT editorial that they posted online but which was not in the paper today: The [Celeb] ad gave us an uneasy feeling that the McCain campaign was starting up the same sort of racially tinged attack on Mr. Obama that Republican operatives, some of whom work for Mr. McCain now, ran against Harold Ford, a black candidate for Senate in Tennessee in 2006. That assault, too, began with videos juxtaposing Mr. Ford with young, white women.  Mr. Obama called Mr. McCain on the ploy, saying, quite rightly, that the Republicans are trying to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look ...

Axelrod: Obama Campaign Based on Race
RedState: Conservative News and Community — David, You're Not Helping Barack Obama's campaign manager David Axelrod went on Good Morning America this morning to address McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' asertion that Obama is playing the race card. Interviewer Chris Cuomo played Obama's comments from yesterday in reaction to McCain's brilliant "Celeb" ad in which Obama's readiness to lead the country is brought into question. Obama said, "What they're [Bush and McCain] going to do is try to scare you about me. He's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar ...

Seeeeeeee?
The Corner on National Review Online — Friday, August 01, 2008 [image] Seeeeeeee? [ Kathleen Parker ] Apparently John McCain missed the Barack Obama teflon memo . The latest, and now controversial, ad out of the McCain camp includes images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, that maybe are supposed to suggest...we're not sure, that Barack doesn't wear underwear? That he's a bad parent, who dates his bodyguards? Maybe if the whole thing wasn't so laughable we'd be offended (we mean, seriously, Britney and Paris? they don't exactly inspire adulation). Some people are suggesting that the ad is racist because, in the words of Josh Marshall , it is ...

Brainster's Blog — Laughable NY Times Coverage Talking about Obama's playing of the race card, they manage to make it seem like it was McCain who played it. With his rejoinder about playing “the race card,” Mr. Davis effectively assured that race would once again become an unavoidable issue as voters face an election in which, for the first time, one of the major parties’ nominees is African-American. And with its criticism, the McCain campaign was ensuring that Mr. Obama’s race — he is the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas — would again be a factor in coverage of the presidential race. On Thursday, ...

Obama's Gift to the Late Night Hosts
Weekly Standard Blog — Blasting McCain's latest ad, Obama meant to say the 30-second spot featured Britney Spears. Instead he said Hillary Clinton. Oops, he did it again. Check it out: "Now we’ve got ads about Britney and Paris," Obama said referencing McCain's new ad comparing his opponent to the young celebrities, Spears and Hilton. "At a time when we’ve got bigger challenges than any time in our history and you’re running ads with Hillary and er – with Britney and ah Paris in it. I mean come on. The American people deserve better." When McCain messes up, it's because he's old, he's confused, ...

New McCain ad: “The One”
Hot Air » Top Picks — New McCain ad: “The One” posted at 3:06 pm on August 1, 2008 by Allahpundit Send to a Friend | printer-friendly A logical progression from the “celebrity” ad, which, as I said yesterday , was just a polite way of calling attention to the (benign) cult of personality on which The One’s appeal rests. McCain can’t accuse Obama of leading a “cult” so he dialed the adjective down to a lower grade of worship. Today he dials it up, accusing him of believing he’s the Messiah while taking care not to accuse his supporters of (necessarily) agreeing. An occasional goof on Obama every few weeks as part of an ad mix ...

"I'm able, by means of a secret charm"
sisu — Please your honours," said he, "I'm able, By means of a secret charm, to draw All creatures living beneath the sun, That creep or swim or fly or run, After me so as you never saw! Out came the children ...

Hearts & Minds, 2.0
Ben Smith's Blog — Jonathan notes that "Celeb" is a web hit, with more than 1.2 million views on YouTube. They may not all be in on the joke, though. At present, the top driver of traffic, according to the statistics on the page, is Huffington Post. The second? Der Spiegel, where the headline is, "Republican spot ridicules German Obama fans."

The McCain Strategy: From Autobiography To Attack
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — There is no doubt: in the past few weeks John McCain has made a conscious decision to run a negative, personalized campaign against Barack Obama. A campaign that was once focused on pushing the biographic attributes of its own candidate has now become almost uniquely intent on tearing down the opponent. This reading is objective. In the past month, the McCain campaign has launched ten web and television advertisements. The first two spots were almost entirely devoted to McCain. The last eight contained only three brief mentions of the Arizona Republican. Indeed, of the 16 minutes and 35 seconds of space that these ...

Quick Thoughts on The "Race Card" Issue
Stubborn Facts — Now I'm sure we're all aware of the latest bit of controversy between Obama and McCain, over cooments Obama made about the GOP and race. For a refresher, Obama said this: "What they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." McCain took offense, and responded: "I'm disappointed that Senator Obama would say the things he's saying," McCain told reporters in Racine, Wis. The Arizona senator said he ...

Barack Obama wants to drill now too!
TigerHawk — Adopting a longstanding TigerHawk/McCain position, Barack Obama is now somewhat less than dead set against drilling on the continental shelf. Not a full-blown flip-flop , but progress. And it isolates Nancy Pelosi, which is always good fun (she having called offshore drilling a "hoax" , some reporter somewhere might -- if he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed -- ask her whether Barack Obama has fallen for it). In any case, Tom Maguire is sounding awfully cynical : This may simply be another manifestation of an Obama campaign tactic - adopt every position held by McCain and then ask voters to ...

Bob Herbert steps up to expose McCain's disgraceful campaign
The Reaction — By Creature While the majority of the media is feigning disbelief that people are hearing a very clear dog-whistle embeded deep within the McCain Britney/Paris ad some are brave enough to speak the truth. Here is Bob Herbert from today's NYT telling it like it is on race and on the rest of John McCain's lowdown and dirty campaign. Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring ...

So what do you think? Do ElectriCities need to continue to pay these lobbyist?
BlueNC - The people's think tank — So what do you think? Do ElectriCities need to continue to pay these lobbyist? ElectriCities, the nonprofit group that provides guidance to the North Carolina Eastern Municipal Power Agency, has five full-time staff positions that focus on lobbying the legislature when it is in session. When session is out, the employees embark upon "grassroots interaction" with city officials. ElectriCities also pays lobbyists $190,000 a year to lobby the N.C. General Assembly on behalf of the power company and $80,000 a year for a federal lobbyist. (Read More)

Apparently, He Never Played “The Dozens”
The Sundries Shack — The good news is that, today, Barack Obama’s campaign isn’t calling John McCain a racist. That’s a mini flip-flop in itself, but since he’s rowing back from his ridiculous assertion, I’ll give him a pass. The bad news is that he’s descended even farther into cluelessness. ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Saturday that Republican rival John McCain’s campaign has been cynical, not racist, in trying to raise fears about his candidacy. Obama said McCain’s campaign team was “very good at ...

Hussein’s Dog-Eared Race Card Not Winning The Game For Him
Pat Dollard | Young Americans — Only 22% Say McCain Ad Racist, But Over Half (53%) See Obama Dollar-bill Comment That Way (Rasmussen) Sixty-nine percent (69%) of the nation’s voters say they’ve seen news coverage of the McCain campaign commercial that includes images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and suggests that Barack Obama is a celebrity just like them. Of those, just 22% say the ad was racist while 63% say it was not. However, Obama’s comment that his Republican opponent will try to scare people because Obama does not look like all the other presidents on dollar bills was seen as racist by 53%. ...

Quote Of The Day
Rhymes With Right — Google Web rhymeswithright.mu.nu || Al -Qaeda Confirms A Successful Cockroach Stomp || Main || August 03, 2008 Quote Of The Day Blogger and columnist Don Surber writes the following in response to Paris Hilton's mother's PuffHo column about the "Celebrity" ad: I don’t like the ad. But McCain should return the $4,600 that the Hiltons donated and tell them to buy panties for their daughters. What more is there to add? || Greg, 05:16 PM || Permalink || Comments (0) || Comments || TrackBacks (0) || Trackback Information for Quote Of The Day TrackBack URL for this ...

Comparison of Obama to Paris Hilton Was an Insult
Moonbattery — It turns out this McCain ad comparing Barack Obama to other vacuous celebrities created by the media like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears really was offensive… …to Paris Hilton's mom. She huffs that the ad is "a complete waste of the ...

I hear their gentle voices calling Old Black Joe
SteveAudio — It's been quite a week in John McMaverickypants' campaign, what with his latest insulting ads. Oh hell, here's the first: Celebrity? Young, vacuous, slutty white women? Of course, serious Villagers like Ross Douthat don't see it that way: That's the takeaway, so far as I can tell, from this Josh Marshall post, which starts with the dubious claim that this McCain ad - which Ramesh and John Weaver rightly call childish - is actually playing on ...

"The Paris Hilton Tax Break"
The Corner on National Review Online — Monday, August 04, 2008 [image] "The Paris Hilton Tax Break" [John J. Miller] If it's so awful to pull Paris Hilton into politics, as John McCain recently did in a commercial , then Barack Obama shouldn't have dragged her into a Senate debate two years ago, when he attacked the repeal of the death tax: Mr. OBAMA: Madam President, I rise to speak in opposition to the complete repeal of the estate tax. First of all, [let's] call this trillion-dollar giveaway what it is the Paris Hilton tax break. In these remarks, Obama mentions "the Paris Hilton tax break"four times check out the Congressional Record, June 8, 2006 (pages ...

No More Mister Nice Blog — WOULD McCAIN'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS FEATURE A DRUMMER PLAYING RIMSHOTS? I said a few months ago that John McCain comes off like Don Rickles -- a little bullet-headed fireplug of a guy who specializes in insult jokes. Hell, the two of them even look alike: I didn't expect that, like Rickles, McCain would construct an entire act -- er, campaign -- based on nothing but insult jokes. But here we are. Every bit of McCain's campaign seems as if it's building up to a rimshot. Hey, Obama and the press -- get a room! (Ta-da ...

FYI Flashback: McCain Not First To Compare Obama To Paris Hilton
Pat Dollard | Young Americans — “Resolutely Down To Earth“??? Check out Hussein’s personal seat on “O-Force One” , his campaign plane (CBS). The Senator’s Humble Beginning Rising Star Barack Obama Is Resolutely Down to Earth By Mark Leibovich (WaPo) - February 24, 2005 There’s nothing exotic or complicated about how phenoms are made in Washington, and, more to the point, how they are broken. “Andy Warhol said we all get our 15 minutes of fame,” says Barack ...

Is Obama Really a Superstar in Germany?
Weekly Standard Blog — Barack Obama may have left Berlin more than a week ago, but the political repercussions of his speech to about 200,000 people there can still be felt. First came John McCain’s controversial Barack-Obama-Is-The-Biggest-Celebrity-In-The-World-But-Is-He-Ready-To Lead? ad. Then the Republican National Committee launched a parody-type campaign spot that mocks, among other things, the Obama supporters in Berlin by comparing their Obamania to the fondness of many Germans for Knight Rider and Baywatch “star” David Hasselhoff during the 1980s. While the RNC ad seemed to gain only little traction in ...

Paris Hilton Strikes Back at McCain
The Caucus — Hey America, Paris Hilton responds with her own video to John McCain, who dragged her into the presidential race. You can say this: she shows more of a sense of humor than her mother, a McCain contributor, who slammed Mr. McCain’s original video as a waste of time. Let’s hope we hear from Britney too.

Payback: Paris Hilton Slams John McCain (Video)
Tennessee Guerilla Women — Paris Hilton has apparently had it with serving as a sexy object of ridicule in the men's election drama. Ms. Hilton has released a "campaign ad" in response to John McCain's "Celebrity" ad. McCain's ad is infamous for using Paris Hilton and Britney Spears as sexy props in the boy fight between McCain and Obama. Paris uses ageism against John McCain, but he used her first, and it's not like she can turn him into a sex object. (The "Celebrity" ad is also infamous for causing Bob Herbert to see phallic symbols!) Look out Keith "Sexist" Olbermann, Paris will be coming after your slimey ass ...

Is Obama’s Victory a Statistical Certainty?
The American Spectator — Analogies from sports are often employed to describe the competitive clash of politics and I've used a baseball metaphor myself to describe the current presidential campaign. However, my eyebrows were raised when I learned that Internet poll guru Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight (538 = total number of Electoral College votes) comes to political punditry from a background of baseball statistics . (See the Newsweek article here .) The real problem with this is that, unlike the cold reality of baseball statistics, campaign polls are a flawed instrument that yield only an approximation of public ...

Why Do TV Ads Suck So Much Compared to Web Video?
The Next Right — Ever since the "web video" made its debut in the 2004 cycle, it's been a tried and true tool used to move an edgier message into the earned media narrative without the costs or potential backlash associated with a broad television buy. The McCain "The One" web video is a perfect example of this, rising to over 947,000 views on YouTube, second only to the "Celeb" ad. But with the noteworthy exception of "Celeb" and a couple of evocative McCain bio ads narrated by Powers Boothe, general election advertising has sucked this year. The quality and persuasiveness of web videos ...

Silly Season
Ross Douthat — Did Bob Herbert really go on MSNBC to insist that the "celebrity" ad deliberately juxtaposed its shots of Britney and Paris Hilton with gratuitous phallic symbols - per Herbert, the Washington Monument and the Leaning Tower of Pisa; per reality, the Victory Column in Berlin, where Obama was giving his speech - in order to hammer home its miscegenation theme? Why yes, apparently he did. Did Timothy Noah really pen a column for Slate arguing that a fluff piece for the Journal about Obama's skinniness "can't avoid being interpreted as a coded discussion of race," and calling for a ...

Checking the techPresident Charts
techPresident — It's been a while since I've checked in on our charts tracking how the campaigns are doing on the web, and even though we're now firmly headed into the August doldrums before the national conventions, some interesting trends are worth noting. * Obama continues to dominate the online social network arena, gaining another 125,000 friends on Facebook in the last month. * In terms of site traffic, it looks like July was McCain's best month ever. Hitwise shows him peaking at nearly 30% of all web traffic (with Obama taking the rest); Compete's data shows a similar boost for the Arizona Senator. Keep in mind that ...

Future President Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad
MoJo Blog Posts: mojo — --Previous Post | Blog Index Future President Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Ad Paris Hilton, never one to pass up an opportunity to display money or pander for attention, has produced a video response to Sen. McCain's attack ad comparing Sen. Obama with Hilton. The helpful wonks over at The New Republic actually fact-checked Hilton's energy spiel (slow news week, guys?), so check that out if you want. Ok, so maybe she won't be our next Secretary of Energy—and she's not that funny, either. But, unlike the two senators actually running for the most important job in the free world, she ...

Damn, That Hussy Has a Point
Sound Politics — Damn, That Hussy Has a Point I was reminded by an email on the topic from a buddy that Paris Hilton's now famous video response to the "Celebrity" ad does a clearer job of succinctly stating a rational, long-term energy policy for the nation than has either of the Presidential candidates. Somebody in the political world needs to hire her writer. Meanwhile, my friend has secured the rights to parisforvp.com. Heh. Posted by Eric Earling at August 06, 2008 07:48 PM | Email This

Web Videos Take Risks and TV Ads Are For Congressmen
The Next Right — Patrick is right, web ads have frequently been a lot more memorable than presidential TV ads this cycle and there are a couple of good reasons for it.  The campaigns have been much more willing to take risks in web videos and fundamentally, television ads as a tactic are better suited to races further down the ballot. This cycle we’ve seen great web videos and atrocious ones – but the successful ones have all been irreverent, “too long,” hokey or generally different from traditional spots.  In other words, they take risks. ...

Matt Lewis: McCain Channels Aerosmith? (Before Paris & Britney there was Liv & Alicia)...
Townhall.com Blog's TownHall Blog — The " celebrity " ad continues to be debated and discussed. One thing is for sure, though, the ad clearly did garner lots of attention . And even if it meant that people were talking about Barack Obama -- the debate over his celebrity status was framed by John McCain . Aside from the celebrity angle, which was derided as " frivolous ," the ad did make other substantive points about energy. Still, it was clearly the inclusion of images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears that generated the attention McCain's team was hoping for. Simply put, without those images, we wouldn't be talking about the ...

Paris Hilton has Huffington in a huff
sisu — Paris who? Like us, Baby — above vying for Tuck's lunchtime pb-and-bacon sandwich —never once had the slightest interest in the Hilton heiress who was famous for being famous. Not until we saw her hot, hot, hot "Paris Hilton for President" FunnyorDie.com ...

Hit Me, Voters, One More Time
Daily Kos — In "McCain takes lead on YouTube hits", Stephen Dinan of the Washington Times, in a feat as amazing as squeezing raindrops from a rock, concludes from the number of hits on McCain's YouTube channel that McCain has "figured out the younger generation just fine." Dinan's article echoes what's been chattered about on cable news coverage of McCain's "Celeb" ad--that the ad's YouTube popularity is allegedly evidence that younger voters are "tuning in" to John McCain: Mr. McCain has pumped out a series of brutal yet entertaining attack ads and Web videos mocking the press and Mr. Obama, and the ...

Barack Obama to John McCain: 'Oh yeah, well you're a celebrity, too!'
Top of the Ticket — As they say in sports coverage, let's go to the tape. First, of course, we have the John McCain ad trying to make Barack Obama look all light and fluffy by linking him to some Hollywood party girls. "Passing fad" is the not-so-subliminal message here. And now we have Obama's ad response. The theme here -- "Takes one to know one." The risk for Obama is that the ad's hard-edged tone contrasts ...

John McCain's "Hot Chicks Dig Obama" and "Celebrity" ads racist? Stop overreacting
Shakesville — 1830s: Racist --- 1860s: Racist --- 1906: Racist --- 1915: Racist --- 1917: Racist --- 1920s: Racist --- 1950s: Racist --- 1975: Racist --- 2006: ...

All American Maverick
The American Spectator — YORK, Pa. -- Grand Funk Railroad's "American Band" blared from the speakers as Sen. John McCain shook hands with supporters following his town hall meeting here yesterday. The song's lyrics -- celebrating a rock band's hedonistic depredations with groupies like "Sweet Connie" -- don't quite match the staid image of the GOP, but like the '70s rockers, the presidential candidate was here to help Pennsylvania Republicans "party down." "I think we're going to be up late on election night, and I'm the underdog," McCain told a crowd of more than 3,000 at the Toyota Arena, and made a prediction: "I think you're going to hear the ...

New adventures in private financing of elections
SCSUScholars — Charging for lawn signs: Purchased in bulk, a two-color lawn sign might cost the Obama campaign $1. I checked the Obama '08 Web site. They offer the budget-conscious supporter a generic 26-by-16-inch sign for $8. For those Obamites into conspicuous consumption, the site advertises a variety of 22-by-15-inch designer signs for $19.99. If this were an oil company, the Democrats would be accusing it of price gouging. As Kurt Vonnegut put it, "So it goes." I called the Obama '08 Minnesota office for clarification. Media spokesperson Nick Kimball told me it is "generally a policy of the campaign ...

Obama's Slide Started with the FISA Compromise and NAFTA Reversal
Open Left - Front Page — Paul Krugman links to this chart from Nate Silver and quotes Silver as follows. Although Barack Obama remains a slight favorite in this election, his position is more vulnerable than at any point since the primaries concluded, and he no longer appears to have a built-in strength in the electoral college that we had attributed to him before. From Obama's highpoint on June 19th, there are two turns downward and one flat period.  The first downward tilt is on June 19th, when his ascent turned into a descent, and the second was on July 31st, where his descent accelerated. ...

SOS!
I Am TRex — How do YOU clean stubborn spots off your resume? You call in the scrubbers. Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin’s firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called “October surprise” that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election. In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter ...

“She’s The Biggest Celebrity In The World…”
This Modern World — Earlier today I wrote a post with a suggestion for an Obama ad , but what I’d really like to see is a Palin-ized shot-by-shot remake of the first half of this ad : Same narrator, same structure, same footage of Britney Spears, etc. And then for the kicker, cut to Barack Obama speaking directly to the camera saying :…but that’s not why you should vote against John McCain. Beneath all the hype is the same economic policies, foreign policies, energy policy, and dirty politics we’ve seen for the past eight years. I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message because you can’t promise change when your record is just more of ...

Unforced Errors
Stones Cry Out — If Barack Obama loses the election this November (and at this point it’s impossible to say whether he will - it’s too close to call) it will be because of a series of unforced errors. They are missteps in the campaign that when taken individually don’t seem like a huge issue but when combined have the effect of totally derailing what would have otherwise been a hugely successful campaign. 1. The Berlin Speech It’s a speech notable not so much for what he said but where he gave it - surrounded by 200,000 or more European fans. It was Obama trying to ...

Pitney: The Alinsky Ticket
Articles on National Review Online — Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 R adical activist Saul Alinsky has had quite a season, especially for somebody who has been dead for 36 years. The two Democratic finalists had Alinsky links. Hillary Clinton wrote her 1969 senior thesis ...

Barack Obama’s Celebrity Story Line
GayPatriot — “Politicians held captive by their big-money contributors or succumbing to interest-group pressure–this is the staple of modern political reporting, the story line that weaves its way into just about every analysis of what’s wrong with our democracy.” Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope Looks like the Democratic presidential nominee is doing what he can to get that story line out there. Reuters’ David Alexander asks, “So what does Barack Obama do after a hard day of defending the common man during the worst financial crisis since the Great ...

Josh Dorner: New McCain Ad Repeats Discredited "Celeb" Claim That Obama Will Raise Taxes On Electricity
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — After releasing an ad earlier this week that contained debunked lies about offshore drilling and gas prices, John McCain unveiled a new ad today, "Dome," that hits on classic conservative fears of "massive government," "spending," and both "painful" and "skyrocketing" taxes. The ad's voice over specifically stokes fears of "skyrocketing taxes on life savings, electricity, and home heating oil." This resurrects an old, completely discredited claim made this summer in the original "Celeb" ad. (Remember when we thought that was as low as the ...

Tracking a Political Meme: McCain vs Paris Hilton
techPresident — Ever wanted to be able to show someone exactly how a "meme" moves across the web in real-time? Anthony Hamelle of Linkfluence has posted a video doing exactly that. He zeroes in on two political videos that made a big splash at the height of summer: the McCain campaign's successful viral attack on Barack Obama as a "Celeb," which compared him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in the wake of his European tour and scored well over a million views; and Paris Hilton's snarky response, which ultimately overtook McCain with something over three million views. Hamelle is working with the same map of the US ...

McCain Wins Campaign for Whiner-in-Chief
Daily Kos — Ha ha ha ha ha: McCain says Obama lead growing because ‘life isn’t fair’ (CNN) — Sen. John McCain said Thursday that Sen. Barack Obama’s poll numbers are rising as the economy seems to sink "because life isn’t fair." "He certainly did nothing for the first few days," McCain said Thursday on Fox News. "I suspended my campaign, took our ads down, came back to Washington, met with the House folks and got on the phone, and also had face-to-face meetings." What next? "Unfair! People like him better than me!" ...

Daily Digest: "Open Townhall Debate" Neither Open Nor Townhall. Discuss.
techPresident — The Web on the Candidates Citizen Debate Qs are One in a Million: "At least six million questions have been submitted via the Internet to be asked at the town-hall-style presidential debate Tuesday," reports the New York Times' Katharine Q. Seelye. "The moderator, Tom Brokaw of NBC News, is sifting through those millions of questions to find six or seven that he might pose." Yeah, um, let's hope Brokaw has a posse of twelve thousand interns, because there's no way he's getting through those alone. ...

Top 60 Memorable Campaign Ads Of 2008
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — It is tradition in every campaign for each side to denounce the other as having run the sleaziest race in modern political history. And certainly it seems like every day brings with it a new attack ad deemed "the worst one yet." While historians are generally skittish when it comes to such claims -- pointing out that past years witnessed some serious mudslinging of their own -- it is hard to dismiss just how dirty and/or memorable some of the attack ads have been this election cycle. Many times it is an outside group hurling the sludge. On several occasions the notably nasty or remarkable stuff is ...

Top 60 Memorable Campaign Ads Of 2008
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — It is tradition in every campaign for each side to denounce the other as having run the sleaziest race in modern political history. And certainly it seems like every day brings with it a new attack ad deemed "the worst one yet." While historians are generally skittish when it comes to such claims -- pointing out that past years witnessed some serious mudslinging of their own -- it is hard to dismiss just how dirty and/or memorable some of the attack ads have been this election cycle. Many times it is an outside group hurling the sludge. On several occasions the notably nasty or remarkable stuff is ...

Endgame: Nov. 3
The Caucus — THE DAY The day of days was nearly upon voters, and Senators John McCain and Barack Obama each sounded hopeful (but not too confident) and energized (though exhaustion lay behind the smiles) while hopscotching among swing states on Monday. After 22 months of memorable campaigning there were a few final memorable lines. Mr. Obama, on MTV, criticizing sagging pants: “Brothers should pull up their pants.” And Gov. Sarah Palin warning voters in Missouri that Democrats would cut defense spending: “Do they think terrorists have all of a sudden became the good guys?” Mr. Obama flew home to Chicago for Election Day. Mr. McCain, though, ...

Happy Hour Links
Weekly Standard Blog — Sen. Saxby Chambliss opens up a 7 point lead over Democrat Jim Martin on the eve of Georgia's runoff election. Another McCain campaign lie exposed: Britney Spears and World Wrestling Entertainment are more popular than the "biggest celebrity in the world". Max Boot thinks guns might have helped India's police officers stop the terrorists in Mumbai. Continetti does Bloggingheads. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom will post a 7.5 hour state of the city speech on YouTube this week. And you thought Joe Biden was a ...

The Wrong Ads and the Wright One
FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right — At the Dole Institute panel last week, I got into an extended discussion with Sarah Simmons and Christian Ferry, the gracious and sporting McCain senior staffers present, about the wisdom or lack thereof of McCain's messaging strategy. My point, which I might or might not have articulated very well, was that maintaining the strength of the McCain brand -- and particularly, maintaining the differentiation between the McCain brand and the Republican brand -- was an essential component of any winning strategy. This is the same point that I tried to make in the Los Angeles Times in August, at which time McCain was ...

Top 10 Funniest Viral Videos of 2008
Politics Daily — Filed under: Featured Stories, Humor, Media, Viral Video, LOLection From the better late than never files: 2008 was the year that YouTube started to notice its voice changing, and felt its body changing in other new, and frightening ways. While web videos played a ...

Is Obama The 'Most Famous Living Person Ever'?
Politics Daily — Filed under: Barack Obama, John McCain, Featured Stories, MediaAn article at Vanity Fair by former Clinton Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers posits that President Barack Obama may well be the most famous living person in the history of our planet: I'm not trying to induce an acid flashback to John Lennon's infamous 1966 comment, "The Beatles are more popular than Jesus." But whether you measure fame in terms of saturation or sheer numbers, it seems indisputable to me that more people know at least something about the new American ...

Obama Insults the Dignity of Special-Needs Americans
RedState: Conservative News and Community — [h/t RottDawg, Jeff Emanuel, and ABG] Presidential Ass-Hattery of the Day: To Leno, and clearly adrift from binky his TelePrompTer, about his bowling ineptitude : “It’s like Special Olympics.” Ah, no, Barry. Actually, it’s nothing like Special Olympics. This…… ...

Britney, Paris, Miley, and Meghan
Politics Daily — Filed under: RepublicansShe's the biggest celebrity in the world...but is she ready to lead? Everyone wants to talk to her, and if they can't do that, they talk about her. Let's face it, Meghan McCain is everywhere -- and I doubt she's going away any time soon. That's quite an impressive accomplishment, especially considering she was soundly soundly by Sasha and Malia in last year's race for first daughter (I kid, I kid...). Yet she has managed to break free from her father and establish herself as an independent national figure ...

Jude : The Spectre Of Specter, the Folly Of Franken
Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog — Get ready for a divisive week of national politics - surprise! Some on the Left will be going after firefighter Frank Ricci , so that'll be nice. Politics of personal destruction, yada yada yada. Eventually, not only will qualified office holders refuse to run, but average citizens, even those with a righteous cause, will decline to speak up for fear of being noticed and targeted. A friend asked me why Republicans would bother to oppose the Sotomayor nomination, since her confirmation seems assured. My feeling is that we only get to have this important conversation on the occasions of Supreme Court nominations, so we should ...

The Best And The Worst Of Obama's Speed-Date With The Sunday News Anchors
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — This Sunday, as you are no doubt aware, President Obama invited State Of The Union, Face The Nation, Meet The Press, This Week, and NOT FOX NEWS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES into the White House to attempt "The Full Ginsburg", which is a term given to anyone who attempts to appear on all five Sunday morning political shows. (Obama opted to favor Univision with an appearance, instead of Fox News.) Since Obama eschewed the warm embrace of "Fox News Sunday", it would perhaps be better to call the president's effort the "Modified, Limited Ginsburg". This series of tete-a-tetes was much-hyped and the ...

The Power of O
The New Republic blogs — Yet one more reason Obama shouldn't go to Copenhagen to lobby for the Olympics: Chicago doesn't need him, since, judging from this report , it looks like Oprah's got things under control: ``Everyone is mesmerized by Oprah,'' said Charmaine Crooks, an Olympian and former International Olympic Committee member from Canada. One of those taking a picture of Chicago's queen - of talk - was Maria Celeste Pedroso, secretary to the leader of Rio 2016 bid chairman Carlos Nuzman. ``So they love Oprah in Rio, too?'' Pedroso was asked. ``Like all the world,'' she said, with a smile. Is all of this starting to remind anyone of that ...

Who Came in Second?
Ace of Spades HQ — Who Came in Second? A lot of people are asking that. Wedon't know who placed, but here's some of the rest of the field. Chinese Human Rights Activist Hu Jia - imprisoned for campaigning for human rights in the PRC, not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China's communist system. -- not as worthy as Barack Hussein Obama. (Not to mention the symbolic value of awarding a Chinese dissident on the 20th Anniversary of the Tianenmen Square Massacre.) Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute has built nearly 80 schools, especially for girls, in ...

Andy McKenna hires media consultant who created McCain Obama "biggest celebrity" spot
Lynn Sweet — There are at least six Republicans running in the Illinois gubernatorial primary and one more may be on deck. The challenge for the staid Andy McKenna, the former chairman of the Illinois Republican Party running for governor, is to put some sizzle in his campaign to see if he can break out of the pack. Toward the end, he hired as his media consultant Fred Davis--who, as John McCain's media guy last summer created one of the most memorable spots of the campaign--hitting Barack Obama for being "the biggest celebrity in the world," comparing him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. "We don't do ...