Comment from Josh Hammond
Time: August 2, 2008, 8:55 am

This may easily be one of the worst commercials I have ever seen, and not just because I am an Obama partisan. It is so poorly constructed and the case they are trying to make is so strained that it denies credibility.

A question that you may know the answer to: I noticed that it does not say, “I am John McCain and I approve this message.” Isn’t that a requirement of an official commercial? Is this a rouge ad of some kind?

Comment from Leftcoast
Time: August 2, 2008, 9:17 am

Must be a rouge ad without the endorsement, or it will be subject to a huge fine. Talk about an ad that will backfire. I hope McCain does another dozen just like it.

Comment from timr
Time: August 2, 2008, 10:20 am

You still don’t seem to get it. McCain did not hire stupid people. For the role that they were hired to play, they are brilliant. McCain knows quite well that he will need to get both the independent and the disgruntled dem votes, so he is working hard to do it by going both negative and racist. Josh, I know you do not accept that the Obama/britney/hilton ad is racist, but I still believe that not only is it racist, but that it is working exactly like st john’s advisors thought it would, so much so that they are pouring a whole lot more money into it. The repig idea, as I have said so many times before, is to go after joe lunchpail, the middle aged white blue collar worker-the same idiots who voted twice for bush-who still think of themselves as dems. IOW-and I am back to the same thing once more-THE SHEEPLE. Yes the ads are somewhat crude, they draw laughter and derision from dems who think that these crude ads will never have any appeal. Wrong. The reason that Obama is not running away with this election, and as a matter of fact still might lose it, is that his camp is not responding to, or getting out in front of, what the McCain camp is doing. I see comments by dems all over the internet. They don’t take st john seriously, they think that the dems have this election in the bag. Oh how wrong they are. The sheeple are listening, and st john is appealing to their innermost racist fears. He hired the guy who did the Ford ad for a reason, and now that the idea is out in the MSM realm-racism-but raised against Obama by st john, now st john’s campaign thinks that all they have to do is cry racism every time that mccain puts out a more blatantly racist ad and the Obama campaign objects, and the MSM-still being mostly in bed with mccain-will either ignore any Obama comment or will in fact chide Obama for even raising the subject. This election will not be decided on one ad, or even a series of ads. But the mccain crowd wants to-and will IMO-be able to pin the same label on Obama that was pinned on Ford. That label? Don’t get too uppity, don’t try to go above that place in society that the white establishment put you. AA’s can become millionaires, they can be sports heros, but just let one try to get a national office, then they will be slammed down. That is why, If Obama does not get out front quickly on this issue of identification, then the repigs will identify him, and that identity will be closer to mandingo than Mr Smith goes to Washington. Remember it is all about the sheeple who constitute almost 50% of the american voters. Hang on to your seats, this is going to be the dirtiest campaign in living memory-go back over 100 years and look at the campaigns run before mass communications and you will see what will happen.

Comment from timr
Time: August 2, 2008, 10:23 am

Sasha, he is 100% right. At least 1/2 of the voters in this country are “bone dumb”

Comment from Josh Hammond
Time: August 2, 2008, 10:48 am

Timr, relax. The reason we have this ad and the last one is because nothing McCain has tried for two or three months sticks, so they keep fishing for something that might stick. We are getting down to the bottom of the barrel. They are bankrupt. This one might work in some ways. We don’t know yet. But the reason the other stuff hasn’t worked is because Obama has also hired smart people. Their quick response team is on the case. And they are disciplined and they know what they are doing. On this race card business the Obama camp is reported to be biding their time, on purpose. Less we forget, Obama successfully navigated this same shit from the Clintons: the content is different, but the tactics are the same.

Comment from Sandy
Time: August 2, 2008, 2:17 pm

Timr, why can’t we convince the rest of these bloggers of what’s in front of their faces. REMEMBER BUSH IN 2000 -no one thought he had a chance.
AMERICANS ARE IGNORANT, RACIST AND EASILY LED. they don’t read they don’t listen they have the attention span of a flea, just a
MSM and TV have made them for the last 50+ years.
We need to figure out something to counteract this McCain Rove Repug bull and we need to do it soon.
In case you optimists haven’t noticed, Obama support is dropping!!!!!

How can we conteract this

Comment from Leftcoast
Time: August 2, 2008, 2:47 pm

Sandy, no one, but no one on this site has more concern about what the Pugs are up to and how feckless the Dems are in an election than me. (See previous post) I still think McCain pulls this thing out because of the concerns cited by you and timr and the fear-driven electorate that’s as dumb as a sack of hammers. That said, this particular ad is so ridiculous, it resonates with no one and may in fact backfire. This isn’t a swiftboat line–there’s nothing about it that will stick unless Obama keeps up the bombast and keeps feeding the meme.

Regarding the race card, comparing what the Pugs are capable of with what the Clinton’s did is just silly. The Pugs are orders of magnitude nastier than anything Clinton served up and I really don’t think Obama and his team have a clue how low low is for the Pugs. There is a right wing 40-year plan at stake in this election. There are trillions of dollars transferring to a cadre of hyper wealthy individuals around the world. We’re being gutted by the minute and this gang of fascists are about 6-8 years away from total victory. Think they’re going to give up?

Comment from timr
Time: August 3, 2008, 10:43 am

LC & Sandy, At least some of you take me seriously. LC-I am not prepared to say that the facist oligarchs are 10 years from victory, I am thinking more about 20-50 years before final victory, it will take at least that long for the US to become at least 90% drones, of course with our current education system-and the religious right’s anti science kick-it could be decades closer. The McCain people already have-in the can waiting to be released-ads that will make the Ford “call me” ad pale in comparison. IMO the only thing that Obama can do-and to me it does not look like he is doing very much-is to get out ahead of st john’s effort to pin his identity to something bad-like the repigs did to Kerry & Gore-with lots of help from the MSM-it doesn’t help Obama very much when he responds directly to mccain’s charges by saying that ” I don’t think he is racist, just cynical”. Big mistake IMO. Lets the mc camp go much farther out on the limb.
Josh, you laugh at the ad linked, but is it crude to the target audience of that ad? That is the real point. The sheeple don’t really notice good production values, but they do pay attention to the subject, which plays to their fears.
When the Obama camp comes out and says that Obama has decided to “play it safe” what comes to my mind is;oh crap, shrum & co have managed to influence the Obama camp with their idea of victory-which has never actually won-and so Obama will also snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Comment from timr
Time: August 3, 2008, 11:38 am

Josh, the mccain campaign-hereafter called mc for my convenience-is not a bunch of dumb guys. Atwater wanna be’s maybe, but not dumb, so we have to look at this ad from what they are looking to do. IMO they are aiming this ad at the evangelicals, the true believers. This ad, if you have read(or heard of) the “Left Behind” series of books-huge sellers in the xristian conservative movement,even tho the NYT did not rate them, they have been pretty big sellers in xristian book stores,walmart, b&n, borders, and amazon.com-is the tale of those left behind after all the believers have been “raptured”, and specifically about the rise of the “anti christ” who these believers think will be the begining of the Apocalypse, the rapture and the end of the world-which will happen-according to those who believe in the fullfilment of the book of revelations-and there are one heck of a lot of churchs out there who will latch onto this in a heart beat-the repigs are,again IMO, attempting to plant the idea that Obama is “The One”=antichrist. The number of voters who believe that Obama is a muslim is now at 14% up from 12% just a few months ago. Right now, people who believe in Apocolyptic Theology are looking for the “End of Times” to happen in their lifetimes, and so to have an “antichrist” figure pop up at this time will fit right into their belief system and world view. Now in the books, the “antichrist” figure wins the election, but then “The RAPTURE” comes right after, so if the wing nut xristians become convinced that Obama is the antichrist that their leaders have been warning about, then your guess is as good as mine as to who wins, but if they are told that if the antichrist figure is defeated, then they are guaranteed a place in the “RAPTURE”. Bear in mind however that these self same churches-a few of my wife’s friends belong to this type of church and tell her all that is happening in an effort to convert her-also believe that the end of the world is set in stone, and that date is Dec 12, 2012. So one can expect a bunch of crazyness before that date. Hagee, remember Hagee? the right Rev Hagee is one of the really big proponents of this end of times scam, and he-along with many others, incl. several big name neocons-believe that the final battle- Armageddon-will be fought in Israel, possibly against the Persians, ie Iran(the final battle full of what they believe is nuclear fire) and that the survivors of Israel will then become converts to their brand of xristianity, and then the rapture will happen, leaving those of us who are non believers in a “hell on earth” led by the super charismatic “anti christ”. Laugh at me, make fun of me if you want, I am just passing on what I think the reasoning behind this ad might well be-and from what my wife has gathered in her regular weekly meetings with these believers-and what,at least some preachers are telling their sheeple. I am not however saying that this is what I believe, I am saying that this is what the “man in the pew” is being told by the preachers, and what they believe. I found out just how much people believe in their preachers when one of them sold the church out from under the church members, took the money, and ran. My wife and I had attended this church- when we first arrived in SA- which had been around for almost 100 years, we saw thru this “preacher” the first time we sat thru his sermon-new in town, this is a very good way to meet new people-we now attend a church that spends the money collected in feeding the hungry and providing beds for the homeless right here in town-the first church that I have found in my entire life that actually practices what it preaches. We both volunteer 3 days a week in their “soup kitchen” But back to the main subject, this ad-depending on where it is aired, it has been both seen and talked about in “prayer meetings” of the faithful, and they are more than receptive to the fact of Obama being the “antichrist” figure displayed in so much of their theology. The fascists noted by LC use these super religious people in order to further their own ends.

Comment from Max
Time: August 3, 2008, 1:15 pm

Timr,

I do rather agree with you that a lot of Fundamentalists can believe strange things. And I do think that the end times for America are coming. But this is a direct result of Bush policies, refusal to accept Peak Oil and build electric powered alternate transport, along with Global Warming altering the weather patterns of the US and dooming the American Southeast to desertrify in the near future.

But I doubt the religious fundies can accept that science can save us, not Bible thumping. I think there are many Americans that would prefer catastrophe to prove them right. And the intellectual level of American thought is appalling.

One thing that does still give me hope is that so many corporate people do realize what I saying, and they are coming over to Obama.

But it is an awful crass ad, the way to respond is to shine a light on John McCain, and his crazy moments.