John McCain’s new television ad is out. He rips into the celebrity of Barack Obama. Watch it here.
I think it’s pretty clever on a number of levels. First of all, calling Obama ‘the biggest celebrity in the World” is not a mischaracterization. But here’s the larger point. The McCain camp is clearly trying to tag Obama as arrogant, elitist, out of touch and someone who loves his celebrity a little too much.
Let’s face facts. The McCain camp has an arsenal of nuggets to choose from. Maybe they’ll choose the “bitter and cling’ comments. Or maybe the reports of an Obama White House transition team. Or maybe the “Citizen of the World” comments. Or maybe they’ll cue up the Hillary Supporters who think Obama is full of himself. You get the idea here right? Bottom line: How will all of this play in Peoria?
In a way the McCain camp is going to try to do to Obama what the Bush team did to Kerry in 2004. Remember the Kerry Windsurfing pictures? Or the whole narrative of how Kerry is this supposedly northeast liberal snob? Well, if they can paint Obama as an elitist who doesn’t really care about people’s plights in the heartland (read; battleground states) then that is a major score for the McCain campaign.
Another point here. The media is fascinated with this idea that the McCain campaign is off their game because they are so distracted by Obama. But wait a minute. Did you see the reaction from the Obama campaign to this celebrity ad? They don’t like it at all. They don’t like it because they know they can’t afford for this perception to take hold in the minds of American voters.
The question is this: Will all of these attacks on Obama distract the Illinois Senator? Think about it. If McCain continues to pound Obama day after day after day, when will Obama snap? Is this all about getting Obama off his game? When will the narrative start to change from McCain’s negative attacks to serious questions about Obama as Commander in Chief?