The ad wars: McCain’s “Celebs” isn’t about Obama’s inexperience; it’s about mobilizing the evangelical base
Thursday, July 31, 2008 at 3:39 pm
- 6 Comments
John McCain’s "Celebs" ad, released yesterday, has garnered an enormous amount of free publicity, most of it withering. For starters, the WashPost’s Trail blog notes that the spot’s claim about an Obama electricity tax is untrue. Former McCain confidant and adviser John Weaver told Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic it was "childish." The St. Pete Times published a feisty editorial blasting the influence of Karl Rove proteges on McCain’s campaign. And Wired’s Threat Level blog notes that an online backlash, complete with video mashup ripostes, is in full swing.
But most of this misses what McCain is up to here. "Celebs" ostensibly concerns Barack Obama’s inexperience and unseriousness as measured against the seasoned statesmanship of McCain, whose eye is ever scanning the Iraq-Pakistan border for signs of trouble. It thus seems pitched to undecided moderates and independents. I hereby submit they are not the target audience at all. This is a Mark-of-Rove production aimed squarely at the party’s working class evangelical base, and its real payload has everything to do with a) linking Obama to decadent mass culture in the persons of Paris and Britney and b) pointing out how well-loved Obama is by the menacing billions out there whom God did not see fit to make Americans. The real point here is to goad those elements of the McCain-alienated cultural right that might be thinking of sitting this one out to go cast their vote against Hollywood, public sodomy and other forms of cosmopolitanism.
Expect to see this vein mined consistently from here on out. Below, the ad, followed by the response that Team Obama released within hours.
John McCain: "Celebs" (:30)
Barack Obama: "Low Road" (:30)
6 Comments
Comment posted August 1, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
I searched Google for a while, trying to find an audio file of people chanting “O-sa-ma!”, to compare it to the McCain spot, but couldn’t come up with anything. Seems the Mexican fans at a US-Mexico soccer game a couple years ago chanted it, but I couldn’t find a file of that either. It sounds so totally faked in that commercial.
Comment posted August 1, 2008 @ 9:52 am
Listen to the soundtrack….American audiences don’t chant his name like that. “O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!” It sounds like a modified soundtrack from an Al-Qaeda rally. Then they show him in the lower right corner, under what looks like an imposing minaret.
Shameless Rovian hit job.
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
That’s a subtle analysis, Steve.
At first glance I didn’t read the Spears and Hilton cuts in that light. I saw simply banality. That’s probably my hedonistic, godless antennae failing to register what the women signify to fundies.
Lost sheep. Degraded women. Spears was a right wing darling once, thought to be suitable late-night viewing for Bob Dole, before her transformation into a post-pubescent nutjob. And Hilton, sired by wealth, was emblematic of hierarchical order.
Then both were discovered to have active snatches, and well, the honeymoon was over.
If McCain’s people wanted to suggest merely hedonism, there are lots of other celebs they could have used. The subtext here is good-girls-gone-wild, and it’s set against the aspect of the suave black figure, conquerer of fame, mover of millions, erotic svengali.
So, this ad is also a little D.W. Griffith for the megachurch crowd.
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
That's a subtle analysis, Steve.
At first glance I didn't read the Spears and Hilton cuts in that light. I saw simply banality. That's probably my hedonistic, godless antennae failing to register what the women signify to fundies.
Lost sheep. Degraded women. Spears was a right wing darling once, thought to be suitable late-night viewing for Bob Dole, before her transformation into a post-pubescent nutjob. And Hilton, sired by wealth, was emblematic of hierarchical order.
Then both were discovered to have active snatches, and well, the honeymoon was over.
If McCain's people wanted to suggest merely hedonism, there are lots of other celebs they could have used. The subtext here is good-girls-gone-wild, and it's set against the aspect of the suave black figure, conquerer of fame, mover of millions, erotic svengali.
So, this ad is also a little D.W. Griffith for the megachurch crowd.
Comment posted August 1, 2008 @ 4:52 am
Listen to the soundtrack….American audiences don't chant his name like that. “O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!” It sounds like a modified soundtrack from an Al-Qaeda rally. Then they show him in the lower right corner, under what looks like an imposing minaret.
Shameless Rovian hit job.
Comment posted August 1, 2008 @ 10:24 am
I searched Google for a while, trying to find an audio file of people chanting “O-sa-ma!”, to compare it to the McCain spot, but couldn't come up with anything. Seems the Mexican fans at a US-Mexico soccer game a couple years ago chanted it, but I couldn't find a file of that either. It sounds so totally faked in that commercial.
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