rssObama Blasts McCain as “Washington’s Biggest Celebrity”
Monday, August 11, 2008 at 12:44 pm
- 2 Comments
Sen. Barack Obama is on his first extended vacation of the campaign, but his aides are working hard to counteract Sen. John McCain’s recent celebrity offensive. A new attack ad features McCain yucking it up with the glitterati — from Usher to David Letterman — and assails McCain as a Washington celebrity who sold out to oil companies. An Obama aide tells TWI the ad is running on national cable channels.
Last week, Obama’s aides limited the focus on their new attack ads, simultaneously pushing policy events and emphasizing that their campaign was more positive, honest and policy-oriented than McCain’s "low road" efforts. Yet today’s attack is center stage. Campaign Manager David Plouffe says the ad shows, "McCain has completely transformed himself to please special interests and the far-right wing of his party." The campaign emailed supporters with a call to forward a link to "help make sure people see the ad pushing back on McCain’s low-road attacks." (The email also asked for "a donation of $5 or more" to get the ad on the air.")
This kind of jujitsu, of course, is standard political fare. Karl Rove perfected the dark art of projecting a candidate’s own weakness onto an opponent. Thus President George W. Bush’s weak service record seemed like a minor issue compared to the "questions" raised about his opponents’ war records — from McCain in 2000 to Sen. John Kerry in 2004. (See Wayne Slater, who wrote a book about Rove.) McCain’s camp is aiming to brush aside his long love affair with the spotlight — including a cameo in the sex-crazed movie, "Wedding Crashers," and more than 30 late night comedy show appearances — by whining that it is actually Obama who has celebrity issues. Rather than defend this guilty charge, Team Obama is striking back by calling out McCain’s chronic celebrity tendencies and thirst for Hollywood attention. Clearly, there’s plenty of material to choose from.
PRODUCTION NOTES: A deep-voiced announcer and big-band jazz score make the ad feel like a movie preview, reinforcing the celebrity theme. Paparazzi flashbulbs blanket McCain’s cameos, a riff on the flashes in recent attack ads against Obama. Boisterous shots of McCain lapping up the Hollywood spotlight fade into images of the Arizona senator clinging to Bush, then marching with a retinue of well-dressed aides, whom the ad presents as lobbyists running a "low-road campaign." It ends on rapid-fire shots of McCain with Jay Leno. The lingers on and closes with an image of McCain and Bush, while the voice-over indicts McCain as a "Washington celebrity playing the same old Washington games." The images offer a compelling reminder that McCain is chummy with celebs and versed in Beltway theater. But as a reactive message, it may be overshadowed by the original punch of McCain’s first celebrity ads.
2 Comments
Comment posted August 16, 2008 @ 9:29 am
Last Week the Washington Post noted that Obama was too soft on McCain and this week we get a counterattactk that McCain, not Obama, is the real celebrity! Living in the country where “Paparazzi” was invented, this discussion about who is the celebrity or not is laughable beach time reading for us.
We would like to point out a more serious, and potentially more explosive issue for Obama to bring up, appeared in one of the largest Italian daily newspapers “La Republica” on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, 7 August, 2008. The article, following up on articles that have been written in both the Los Angeles Times and in the Huffington Post, noted, among other things, that one of McCain’s biggest financial supporters was involved in a quid pro quo with the Chinese. The Chinese awarded a lucrative casino license to America’s third richest man, Sheldon Adelson in exchange for his calling Congressman Tom DeLay and quashing a bill to vote against giving China the 2008 Olympics.
The article is written in Italian, but, in short it in plain words links a huge financial backer of the Republican party ( and George Bush ), what Huffington called the Republican George Soros, to a corrupt agreement with the Communist Chinese to kill a vote in the US congress.
Of course in Italy we are used to this kind of behavior, but the “high road” of Obama should point out these obvious corrupt activities of John McCain supporters. Apparently, somebody in Louisana special Congressional election last spring already linked Adelson, the Chinese, and the Republican network of corruption, but perhaps Obama is too softheaded to point this out to a nation looking for change!
Comment posted August 16, 2008 @ 4:29 am
Last Week the Washington Post noted that Obama was too soft on McCain and this week we get a counterattactk that McCain, not Obama, is the real celebrity! Living in the country where “Paparazzi” was invented, this discussion about who is the celebrity or not is laughable beach time reading for us.
We would like to point out a more serious, and potentially more explosive issue for Obama to bring up, appeared in one of the largest Italian daily newspapers “La Republica” on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, 7 August, 2008. The article, following up on articles that have been written in both the Los Angeles Times and in the Huffington Post, noted, among other things, that one of McCain's biggest financial supporters was involved in a quid pro quo with the Chinese. The Chinese awarded a lucrative casino license to America's third richest man, Sheldon Adelson in exchange for his calling Congressman Tom DeLay and quashing a bill to vote against giving China the 2008 Olympics.
The article is written in Italian, but, in short it in plain words links a huge financial backer of the Republican party ( and George Bush ), what Huffington called the Republican George Soros, to a corrupt agreement with the Communist Chinese to kill a vote in the US congress.
Of course in Italy we are used to this kind of behavior, but the “high road” of Obama should point out these obvious corrupt activities of John McCain supporters. Apparently, somebody in Louisana special Congressional election last spring already linked Adelson, the Chinese, and the Republican network of corruption, but perhaps Obama is too softheaded to point this out to a nation looking for change!
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