Pants on Fire III

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.

Comments

See Matt there you go being wrong again. McCain wants to give away his permits do all the revenue flows to companies. Sure energy prices will go up but the government doesn't get the money, businesses do so its not a tax!

Posted by Rob | July 31, 2008 8:42 AM

It's apparent that both McCain and his top advisers have just lost it. These ads are silly , petty, negative, false, etc...

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Posted by matt | July 31, 2008 8:57 AM

Wow. Just... wow.

Do they realize that 527s are for this shit?

Or are the Swift Boaters running the McCain campaign?

Posted by Luke | July 31, 2008 9:01 AM

Triple-wow after reading the comments on the link.

The Cincinnati Enquirer is slightly to the right of Fox News, and THEY'RE the ones offering the review.

I kind of feel like this is a nadir for the whole country.

Posted by Luke | July 31, 2008 9:07 AM

Good point by Rob. You create a new property right, then give it to wealthy companies. It's a resource GIVE AWAY from the public to the rich, not a tax.

Creating a new property right and auction it like a pigouvian tax then redistributing the burden in a progressive manner or reinvesting it in goods with less harmful externalities, would be BAD, BAD, BAD. Or something.

Posted by AJ | July 31, 2008 9:17 AM

I understand that the original working title for this ad was actually: "Hey, where da white women at?"

Posted by DTM | July 31, 2008 9:18 AM

The rest of the ad aside, I have a hard time believing that showing an enormous crowd chanting "O-ba-ma" is helpful to John McCain.

Posted by Drew Steen | July 31, 2008 9:42 AM

McCain is a floundering, confused, bitter man who ain't too bright who is clinging to failed policies. He's up against an organized, highly intelligent, hopeful man who is proposing new policies.

The smell of desperation is overwhelming.

Posted by LFC | July 31, 2008 9:52 AM

You're supposed to run ads this dishonest a week before election day, so that there isn't enough time for word to get out that they're dishonest.

These people realize it's slipping away. They have to scuff up Obama before the Olympics.

Posted by joe from Lowell | July 31, 2008 9:55 AM

Drew,

I actually thought given the opening chord they were trying to invoke History Channel-type images of Germans chanting during Hitler speeches.

Which is part of why the resulting ad is kinda a mess--although one can loosely connect Paris Hilton and Adolf Hitler through the concept of popularity, that is such a discordant pairing otherwise that I don't think the ad ends up conveying a clear negative image. In other words, I think they need to settle on one negative image (empty suit, arrogant black guy, Hitler-in-the-making, etc.), because the current kitchen sink strategy is just cancelling itself out.

Posted by DTM | July 31, 2008 9:58 AM

For example, watch the beginning of this clip immediately following the introduction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KgJQUXr2Ws&feature=related

I think that is what they were going for with crowd chants in the ad.

Posted by DTM | July 31, 2008 10:02 AM

I actually thought given the opening chord they were trying to invoke History Channel-type images of Germans chanting during Hitler speeches.

DTM, that's probably true. It's another example of McCain's inability to think more than one move ahead. Basically, he's throwing the Germans' enthusiasm for Obama in their face, likening it to Hitler's popularity, and then (if, god forbid, he wins) he'll have the gall to turn around and ask them to please supply more troops to NATO for Afghanistan.

In this, he's just like Bush and Hillary. There's no long-term thoughts about anything. What a putz.

Posted by LFC | July 31, 2008 10:07 AM

LFC,

The problem isn't that they're stupid, but that in both cases (Hillary in March-June, McCain now) they are hanging on by their fingernails, and know that they are in serious danger of being buried. So they throw out anything they can to keep the news cycle from being about the Hillary/McCain Death Watch.

If MSNBC spends a day talking about how Hillary's latest theory about how to win the nomination is nonsensical, at least that's one more day they aren't talking about the race being over. Same thing here.

Posted by joe from Lowell | July 31, 2008 10:13 AM

Joe, I agree with you from the standpoint of late in the game (like Hillary in March), but the short-term thinking showed its ugly head long before for both McCain and Clinton.

With Clinton it was poor campaign planning, both in terms of organization and in finances. She thought the nomination was simply hers. Her failure to plan past Super Tuesday or even understand the Texas primary/caucus system until weeks before it took place are examples of organizational flaws. Her positions on MI and FL, as well as supers, showed that her opinion changed with how it would benefit her at the moment.

With McCain, he seems to have jumped in without any ability to prepare his own positions, so he flounders, flips, and flops. Either that or he's the world's biggest panderer, taking the prize from Romney (who was, in no way, shape, or form, confused about what he was doing). Like Hillary, he also seems incapable of pulling together a functional campaign, so they step all over each other.

As others have pointed out, it seems a bit early for McCain to have turned this desperate, but I too am glad he's shown his true colors now rather than October.

Posted by LFC | July 31, 2008 10:22 AM

"It's apparent that both McCain and his top advisers have just lost it. "
not true. while the ad is despicable and desperate, the mccain campaign knows exactly what they are doing.
they are going about the process of tearing down obama and contrary to what others here have argued, they DO NOT need to have a coherent, consistent theme in order to achieve their goal.
when a building is demolished, sure, it's great to do it in the way that lets the building fall into its own footprint so the image looks nice and neat on video.
but if you use enough explosives, and all different kinds of material to destroy that building, it will still end up as a pile of rubble in the end.
the process might not be as neat and as efficient as it might have looked if you had followed a clean, professional method, but the deed still gets done.
(building up and properly defining your own candidacy does require consistency and much more care, but destroying another candidate requires very different approaches.)
what we are seeing with the mccain campaign is that approach that just says, throw as much dynamite as possible at the building and through the sheer volume, we will achieve our goal.
it might not be pretty and it might not be as efficient as it might have been, but the job still gets done.
the bigger issue is the truly pathetic, classically-whining, democratic-style obama response. complaining about the attacks and bemoaning the dishonorable campaign mccain is running is exactly what democratic losers have done in the past.
it is not a coincidence that the only democratic presidential winner since the age of atwater has been bill clinton, who gave as good as he got.
i have one question: why does the obama campaign insist on continuing to describe mcccain as an "honorable man" each time they refer to him?
the timidity implicit in their reluctance to confront mccain is telling, and, again, typical of an entire generation of democratic losers.

Posted by frankie d | July 31, 2008 11:04 AM

frankie d,

I very much disagree. An effective negative campaign isn't about random destruction. Rather, the goal is to actually create a negative image of the target. In that sense, you aren't just trying to blow up your target's building (the positive image the rival candidate is trying to create), but rather trying to construct an alternative building as well (the negative image of the rival candidate you want to create). And that alternative building won't be able to stand if it is full of inconsistencies and generally incoherent.

Posted by DTM | July 31, 2008 11:10 AM

I very much disagree. An effective negative campaign isn't about random destruction. Rather, the goal is to actually create a negative image of the target

Agreed. The Paris/Britney stuff totally undercuts what could have been a fairly psychologically powerful ad.

If they'd left it with the crowds and the chanting and found some way to splice in footage of the Nuremburg rallies it could have been tremendously effective.

While a Nuremburg approach is risky, it could play like the Daisy ad. But because Britney and Paris are profoundly unserious people, it makes it impossible to treat this ad seriously.

Posted by BFR | July 31, 2008 11:32 AM

DTM,

while i certainly think that it is more effective and preferable to have a cogent, coherent alternative image i do not think that it is necessary.
just look at the last couple of democratic presidential candidates and consider the manner in which republicans defined them.
gore was a know-it-all smarty-pants, but he didn't have enough smarts to be able to choose his own clothes.
he wanted to control the lives of americans with all of his crazy regulations, but he had to exaggerate his own legislative record in order to make himself look more important.
john kerry was a dangerous flipflopper who had been telling the same lies about himself since the vietnam war.
john kerry would say anything to get elected, but he maintained policy positions that were supposedly out of the mainstream of american politics, they were so far left.
i could go on and on.
there has never been any consistency to the attacks from the right. certainly they attempt to come up with one overarching image, one that will stick in the minds of voters, but the main goal is always to simply destroy the democratic candidate, however that can be achieved.
the paris/brittany ad is a perfect example.
sure, they are trying to tar him as a vapid celebrity, but they are also doing the subliminal racist thing by associating the images of two sexually promiscuous white women with the image of a youthful-looking black man.
that is no coincidence and it is only slightly less obvious than the infamous "call me" ad that was used against harold ford.

Posted by frankie d | July 31, 2008 11:37 AM

there has never been any consistency to the attacks from the right. certainly they attempt to come up with one overarching image, one that will stick in the minds of voters...

I think your last part is the key - they find one image and hammer it to death.

Gore = liar
Kerry, Carter, Dukakis = too weak to lead

Frankly, it's not just the Republicans that do this either:

Goldwater = WW3
Bush I = out of touch

The McCain camp is just floundering around with multiple messages - Obama is a closet muslim, Obama is an angry black man, Obama is a demogogue, Obama is a ditzy airhead.

Some of these could work together to create a narrative but putting airhead together with demagogue just doesn't seem like it should resonate.

Posted by BFR | July 31, 2008 11:45 AM

haven't democrats figured this stuff out yet?
republicans may not know diddly about governing, but they do know how to win presidential contests.
and when they do an ad like the paris/brittany ad, they are trying to do some very specific things.
the fact that the messages may appear to be contradictory obviously does not bother them, as they pursue their ends.
obama and other dems had better stop laughing and joking about how stupid this stuff is and realize that the entire foundation of their candidacy is being attacked, however clumsily and no matter how contradictory the themes appear.
i just saw the sound bite where obama states that the media should ask mccain if he has anything positive to say.
this remark reveals what could be a fatal blind spot in obama that was evident during the primaries.
several times during the primaries, he specifically stated that he was surprised that the press had swallowed and repeated obvious lies. his remarks appeared to be sincere.
he appeared to be sincere yesterday when he asked the press to ask mccain those questions.
he apparently does not appreciate, at least sufficiently, how disinterested the press is in actually doing its job.
the obama campaign will have to raise those issues and aggressively pursue them, itself.
waiting on the press to reveal untruths will be a loser's game.

Posted by frankie d | July 31, 2008 12:09 PM

frankie d,

First, I think there is serious reason to question the general efficacy of these tactics. They didn't work against Bill Clinton (and Clinton gave them a lot to work with). And they didn't work in 2006 (not a Presidential election, but the GOP tried to "nationalize" the election and then got hammered). And of course 2000 was a squeaker, and even 2004 is a questionable case--yes Bush won, but not by much of a margin for a sitting President.

Second, Obama obviously has a planned counterattack, which is to suggest all this proves McCain is the same sort of politician as President Bush. If Obama succeeds in that counterattack, it will be extremely damaging to McCain, because the only thing keeping McCain within shouting distance is the perception that he is not a typical Bush-Era Republican.

Finally, I think you need to give Obama a little credit on the press issue. Of course he isn't relying on the press to do all his work for him, but to the extent he can gently shame them into doing their nominal jobs, he benefits.

Anyway, I sympathize with Democrats who live in fear of a repeat of the Dukakis/Gore/Kerry losses following similar attacks. But the bottomline is that Obama has been formulating a strategy to deal with all this since long before he even announced his candidacy, and for good or ill he is going to keep carrying out that strategy.

Posted by DTM | July 31, 2008 2:20 PM

dtm,

the attacks did not work against bill clinton because clinton took the offensive against republicans and has been the only dem to do so over the last 24 years.
clinton maintained a republican-style attack machine that kept bush off-balance and responded mercilessly to any attack on clinton.
begala and carville maintained a no-holds-barred attitude and their success speaks for itself.
sadly, all other dems use the strategy of nicely and politely bemoaning the fact that the mean old republicans are saying bad things about them.
that sort of whining does nothing but impress upon the american people how much of a wimp the dem actually is.
and sorry, but the idea that the press can be shamed into doing its job is somewhat laughable.
listen to the debate over the campaign that is going on now. despite evidence to the contrary, the media continues to propagate the myth that obama is receiving some kind of preferential treatment from the press. reporters and news anchors bristle at the very suggestion that this might NOT be true. studies, statistics don't mean anything.
the media is now a fact-free zone where mysterious forces define a reality that allows them to continue to do what they do.
in that kind of environment, no shame can exist.

Posted by frankie d | July 31, 2008 5:29 PM