New York Times columnist Bob Herbert asks:
Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.
Paris Hilton and Britney Spears aren’t just “sexually provocative.” These are women whose celebrity, to a great extent, was shaped by very public airing of their sexual exploits and parts. These women have become cultural icons of the infamy that arises from celebrity mixed with unrestrained sexuality.
At the same time, images of nubile, promiscuous women juxtaposed with Barack Obama churn up stereotypes and primal fears held, largely beneath the surface, by many Americans: Black men with their uncontrolled sexuality are out to steal and rape “our” women.
Don’t fool yourself. Hilton and Spears were not simply chosen because of their celebrity. The same ad makes no sense whatsoever with other scandalous celebs substituted in for the starlets.
Take Martha Stewart…a scandal-ridden white woman who is closer in age to Obama than is Spears. Umm…no, doesn’t work. The ad becomes incomprehensible. But why a woman? How about pairing up Keith Richards and Steven Tyler, celebrities who are both closer in age to Obama than are Hilton and Spears, and have well publicized substance abuse problems and public personas of hypersexual rockers. Obama has confessed to drug use as a youth, so isn’t the Richards/Tyler imagery a much better way to paint Obama as an empty celeb?
This doesn’t work at all. We expect our rock stars to engage in hedonistic self-destruction and take on a hyper-sexual persona. It’s in the job description. Obama, by comparison would come out as clean cut, self-restrained, and rigorously responsible. Besides, they look old. The ad would invoke universal puzzlement (if not ridicule).
Let’s try Michael Jackson, who matches the Hilton/Spears celeb-gone-wild bits, but has the advantage of demographic accuracy: Jackson is male, is close to Obama in age, and is black. Surely, this must make for a better ad than using much younger, white women to exemplify indiscretions of celebrity.
This still doesn’t make any sense. Nobody believes Obama is on the Wacko-Jacko track, which is obviously pathologically bizarre. But, when it comes right down to it, nobody really believes that Obama is on the Hilton or Spears pathologically slightly-less-bizarre tracks, either. The analogy is deeply flawed. Obama has become a celebrity as a result of his skills as a politician and orator, not because his sexual imagery was successfully marketed. An certainly not because he was born, like Hilton, fabulously rich.
The fact is, the Hilton/Spears imagery fails any kind of test as a sensible analogy. (This is one reason why the media is all abuzz about it.) Superficially, the ad was supposed to paint Obama as a shallow celeb. The real function of the ad is identical to that of the infamous NRSC hit advertisement on Harold Ford : frame Obama as the frightening “sexual savage.”
Why would the McCain campaign use hateful, racist messages in a political contest against a sitting U.S. Senator whose only scandalous vice is chewing Nicorette? Because the tactic still works, as was demonstrated by the Republican’s smear ads against Harold Ford in 2006.
One thing that emerges clearly from this episode: John McCain has become a shell of the man he was in 2000.
Excellent point.
On the subject of the McCain/Paris/Brittney ad, one hilarious thing that Jon Stewart’s staff at the Daily Show found out (that apparently the braintrust that is McCain’s campaign staff missed) is that Paris’s parents, this year, gave the full donation amount that they legally could to John McCain. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
I really used to respect McCain and thought he would be the only Rep I could stand in the White House. But that was before he decided to sell his soul to the devil to be president. He stands with the very people who, in 2000, trashed his war record, his wife reputation and his daughter’s paternity. How could he stand next to them today and smile? He told Bush, in 2000, that he thought Bush was full of shit when Bush said he had nothing to do with those attacks.
But, that smell you smell coming from the McCain camp is desperation. The right is feeling the uncomfortable feeling of putting forth a not-so-interesting candidate who is ill-at-ease (that footage of McCain with the Dali Lama is painful to watch)with a good record as a Senator. But the fact that McCain can’t get his ideas across without sounding shrill and that they have to resort to using Paris/Brittney and…Moses? to get attention speaks volumes.
It’s not Obama’s fault that people WANT to go see him and listen to him.
Please. The only people who think this ad is racist are those with a racist filter, aka liberal democrats.
The true meaning of the ad is that Obama is an empty celebrity, with whom the media is obsessed, just like *gasp* Britney/Paris.
If you can’t see that you’re dumb as shit, which you are.
It was about celebrity without substance.
Obama being an empty suit fits the without substance.
Rasmussen now has obama way ahead by one single solitary percentage point.
Gallup has them tied.
Could be a long 4 years of a mcsame presidency if you democrats don’t figure it out and run somebody with some qualifications.
Hey Stupes,
I know you’re lurking out there.
Didn’t I tell you this is how your peeps do?
Gone home yet?
Martha and steven tyler don’t bring up the mental image of fluff that britney, paris and obama do.
Of course, the white liberal guilt is causing many democrats to see racists hiding behind every bush and tree.
4 – Liar. It was about a black man with white women just like the Harold Ford ad.
This is the tactics of the party you work for Stamm – the Republicans.
the white liberal guilt is causing many democrats to see racists
We’re just seeing the racism of the party of David Duke, the party of the Southern Strategy – the Republicans.
Pssst. Obama himself said he didn’t think they were racist, just cynical.
End of discussion.
One thing that emerges clearly from this episode: John McCain has become a shell of the man he was in 2000.
Darryl, I think the problem is that the John McCain of 2000 that everyone likes to romanticize never really existed. He’s always been a shallow climber, willing to say or do anything to get ahead. It’s just that in 2000 he was out of the spotlight very quickly, and he actually actually was a victim of the Bush slime machine. But he’s never been subjected to true media scrutiny. In fact, as we’ve seen in this election, reporters are willing to go out of their way to cover for him.
Now that we’ve gotten a good long look at him, the American people are beginning to see him for what he is. McCain hasn’t changed. It’s simply so difficult to get past the barbeque and donuts crowd that pretends to report on the man that it takes time to realize how thick the hagiography surrounding St. McCain really is.
He’s not a good man. Never has been. Never will be.
Actually, there was some basis at least for the Playboy Club bimbo in the anti-Harold Ford attack ad. I believe Ford really did frequent the Playboy Club? Of course, I don’t think they would have used a Black bimbo in the ad in any event, only a White bimbo …
There is absolutely no basis to connect Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to Barack Obama. Nor is there any evidence that Obama has ever cheated on his wife — unlike John McCain, who cheated on his first wife and probably on his second wife as well.
It would be more appropriate to include Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in an ad attacking McCain. Hilton’s parents and grandparents are Republicans and major contributors to McCain. And I think that Spears has at least expressed public support for the Iraq War.
Richard…why are you mixing apples with oranges again. Brit and Paris connect to Obama with the empty head/suit message quit well. Media infatuation, nothing more. Nothing had anything to do with cheating on ones wife.
But I see your point with Hilton donating to McCain. So why not have the Obama team create an add where they show empty bimbo Hilton and present her as one of the people supporting McCain….and then contrast this to the classy, highly esteemed and intelligent support he is getting from the likes of Snoop Dog, Ludacris and Jeremy Wright…(all men, no bimbo involved).
Or ?
Blowbama has done nothing. NOTHING except bullshit his painful slowspeak upon all of us.
THE most retarded ideas spew forth from his
tiny undeveloped brain (look how small his head
is). Ideas like a 1000 dollars stimulus checks
paid for by the oil companies. Why not 500
dollars from GM or 800 dollars from Boeing?
What an asshole moron.
[Deleted, OT]
McCain 2.0. Hardly! Funny how we look at someone over time and get this picture of what kind of person they are but when we really look close wonder how did we miss all that. His college, military, marriage and political carrier have been mediocre at best. Why would we expect his campaign to be any different? ‘McNasty’ the reputation is well earned.
McCain’s campaign wants to talk about Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears, because McCain can’t win if they talk about the issues. Must make all of you wingnuts proud to see this sort of thing.
So much for Troll’s “ethics,” by the way.
@16
I am the most ethical courageous person here. Everyone knows that. Every other Democrat here remains silent when someone from their own party does wrong. I don’t.
Here’s the truth: People on this blog are mad at that ad because he’s black, and think it’s wrong to criticize black people, and secondly, you are mad because Obama’s your candidate. He’s my candidate, too, but as a political science expert, I realize that controversial ads are to be expected in all levels of political races.
John McCain’s attacks ads have beens rediculous and desperate and in the case of the one about Obama and the troops plain false. This being said this ad is not like the Harld Ford ad, it is not a racist ad. It is clear what that ad is saying, he is all style and no substance. Is this true, of course not, but the ad isn’t racist.
We should quit wasting our time talking about it. There are much more important issues.
@ 17
Squirt, everyone here knows that you prefer an “ethics” that places appearances over real, meaningful change. That’s the opposite of courage.
And, you’re no more a Democrat than is Bill O’Reily. In fact, you have far more in common with BillO than any Democrat I know.
As for the Paris Spears ad, that doesn’t piss me off in the least. McCain doesn’t have the intellectual horsepower required to stay on message, which means this entire descent into the mud will, while potentially leading to a temporary bump in the polls in McCain’s favor, ultimately lead to an Obama landslide.
Heck I thought the dems would use the race card in September when Obama is down by 7-8 but I didn’t think they would use it this early. Man they are scared and desperate. heheehehhe And they should be.
11 – IIRC, Harold Ford went to ONE party thrown by the magazine in Jacksonville, FL – for the Super Bowl.
The ad was an ugly smear, a model for the recent McSame ad against Obama.
If you compare the number of blacks killed under the so called republican’s southern strategy and the number of blacks killed under the democrats KKK your side wins by a landslide.
When I see a black man with two white women I don’t think racist.
Why do you?
Wasn’t it the sanctimonious right that coined the expression, “the coarsening of our culture”?
McCain, apparently with a straight face, seems to charge Obama with “racism“:
In this same article, he describes his support for the negative ads:
Ha, ha, ha.
Pssst. If Obama himself were to say they were racist, he would be accused of…you guessed it…’playing the race card.’
McCain is flailing. He looks clumsy and uncomfortable, and he’s in a race against somebody whom, for better or worse, people can project their hopes on (that the country won’t be allowed to go completely down the tubes). Help us Obama-wan! You’re our only hope!
By the way, Darryl – excellent post.
Right wingers are racists – let’s get that out there. They have all sorts of code for it – but they hate minorities.
And add to that – an idiot candidate seeking to replace another idiot from the same party with no new ideas and nothing but idiotic bullshit to spew and you get nothing left but attack politics – which is what the right wing has been doing for years. And now they get to mix in their built in racial bias so they think it’s the trifecta. It didn’t work in the last three special federal elections – we have to assume that trend will continue. So let the attacks keep coming. You might stir up some of the knuckle – dragging right here on HA – but you won’t win if that’s all you have. Especially if President Obama lives up to his promise to fight back and fight back he must.
Unlike the delusional BBGOP, the primaries actually factually showed how racist and sexist the left is.
90% support of Barack by blacks = racist
Failure to nominate a woman = sexist
Support for Hilary in blue collar white states = racists
With as ‘damaged’ as you nutroots would want us to believe the Republicans are Obama should be over 50% in the polls and should NOT be in a statistical tie with McCain, at all. Period.
This do nothing Congress full of tantrum throwing liberals like Pelosi, Reed, and Murtha have done more to tarnish the Democrat name than the Republicans have done to their own brand in 14 years.
The most telling statement is how conservative Barack’s policies have become in order to win over votes. As this blog and left wing radio have repeatedly shown, when liberals state what they truely believe, people (and advertisers) flee like the plague.
@26 can you go back to school I honestly have no fucking idea what you’re trying to say? Do you speak English?
@3 “The only people who think this ad is racist are those with a racist filter, aka liberal democrats.”
Do you think anyone would believe your rant? Give it up. Everyone in the country gets the intent of these sleazy ads. You’re gonna have to find something else to posture about because this buzzard won’t fly.
Thank you for showing us what a nativist you are as well. I am an ESL citizen thank you very much. Perhaps the reason you don’t understand what is being said is because it is truthful and you cannot comprehend such a notion.
So for those that are counting, BBGOP is a racist, sexist, nativist, embicile.
How bout that Flip Flop from Obama today? Now he wants to drill for oil.
McCain is running these ads because his only chance of winning the election is to create a bogeyman.
So I guess @29 is a new Puddylicker alias.
Where you talking about the McSame flip flop? You can look on YouTube for all the times in 2000 he said he was strongly against ANY oil drilling. How about that? What happened? Did he decide he wanted to pander to the energy lobby that’s paying him big bucks now in addition to providing him with trim?
Spears and Hilton are businesswomen whose commercial stock in trade are their names and images. I’m sure they don’t appreciate McCain expropriating their names and images without permission or payment. If Vogue can’t run Britney’s picture on their front cover without paying her, then I’m pretty sure McCain can’t use her picture on a billboard or in a TV ad without paying her, either. I hope these girls sue the shit out of him. McCain has already gotten in trouble for misappropriating copyrighted music material. He thinks he can take whatever he wants without permission. If you want a guy like that in the White House, you’re sick! He’s a fucking thief.
26, 29 Your babble isn’t even worth responding to. If you’re so brainwashed you actually believe any of that gibberish, I feel sorry for you.
All you need to know about McCain’s racist ads is that he can’t run on Iraq or the economy, and gay marriage is a dead issue, so the racial bogeyman as the only thing he can run on.
It’s also telling that this pitch appeals only to the GOP’s poor white male base. If McCain needs to do something like this just to hang onto voters his party already owns lock-stock-and-barrel, he doesn’t have a chance to win and is only playing to avoid a Democratic blowout.
I see in the news that McCain is vetting Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia.
Eric whooooooo?? Good question.
Barry Goldwater chose an obscure congressman as his running mate. You can argue Goldwater was a big enough name to carry the ticket by himself. After choosing Miller, he had to.
Looks like McCain might do the same thing. Problem is, he’s no Goldwater. If he’s to have any chance at all, he needs Romney, or at least a leading senator or prominent governor, to add heft to his ticket. If he chooses a congressman no one ever heard of, the G.O.P. Party’s ticket will become derisively known as “the two midgets.”
Obama has the star power (and the position as the favorite) to possibly get away with that, but McCain isn’t too far removed from being a nobody himself. Of course, as a Democrat I’d be tickled pink to see him make a mistake like this.
Wait a minute — my ears are already pink!
Jonathan Alter writes in Newsweek:
“In the middle of John McCain’s dopey Britney & Paris attack ad, the announcer gravely asks of Barack Obama: ‘Is He Ready to Lead?’ An equally good question is whether McCain is ready to lead. For a man who will turn 72 this month, he’s a surprisingly immature politician—erratic, impulsive and subject to peer pressure from the last knucklehead who offers him advice. The youthful insouciance that for many years has helped McCain charm reporters like me is now channeled into an ad that one GOP strategist labeled ‘juvenile,’ another termed ‘childish’ and McCain’s own mother called ‘stupid.’ The Obama campaign’s new mantra is that McCain is ‘an honorable man running a dishonorable campaign.’ Lame is more like it.”
(Quoted under fair use.)
http://www.newsweek.com/id/150477
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I predict history will remember this ad as the moment McCain lost the 2008 election.
Jonathan Alter writes in Newsweek:
“In the middle of John McCain’s dopey Britney & Paris attack ad, the announcer gravely asks of Barack Obama: ‘Is He Ready to Lead?’ An equally good question is whether McCain is ready to lead. For a man who will turn 72 this month, he’s a surprisingly immature politician — erratic, impulsive and subject to peer pressure from the last knucklehead who offers him advice. The youthful insouciance that for many years has helped McCain charm reporters like me is now channeled into an ad that one GOP strategist labeled ‘juvenile,’ another termed ‘childish’ and McCain’s own mother called ‘stupid.’ The Obama campaign’s new mantra is that McCain is ‘an honorable man running a dishonorable campaign.’ Lame is more like it.”
(Quoted under fair use.)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I predict history will remember this ad as the moment when McCain lost the 2008 election.
McCain’s ‘Screw Worm’ Moment
The history of politics is full of such moments. Remember George Romney? or Ed Muskie?
Seattle author Timothy Egan describes such a moment in his book “The Worst Hard Time” about the Dust Bowl. He describes the self-destruction of “Alfalfa Bill” Murray, who had campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932:
“[Murray] railed against Roosevelt and his public works projects, calling him a communist. He quit the Democratic Party in protest. But his power was ebbing away. The people in his state loved the new president, and the papers were full of praise for the New Deal. Murray became increasingly irritable. In one speech late in the year, Murray lit into the president as usual. Just then, a schoolboy raised a voice. Murray exploded, snapping at the child. ‘You little screw worm!’ the governor shouted at the boy. ‘Get out of here!’ Alfalfa Bill’s political career never recovered.”
(Quoted under fair use.)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The Spears/Hilton attack ad is McCain’s “screw worm” moment. Everyone except him and his addled campaign manager understands this is the moment when he threw away all the political capital he’s earned over the years and redefined himself as a crochety old man blind to what has happened to the country and out of touch with the people, just as Alfalfa Bill was in 1934 as the dust clouds bore down on him and his dying political career. McCain’s only function now is as a tackling dummy — his only value is that no one cares if he gets hurt.
McCain resembles an angry chimpanzee banging two rocks together.
Why haven’t the people who criticized Edwards for spending $400 on a haircut said anything about McCain spending $520 on a pair of Ferragamo shoes?
Roger Rabbit @ 32
I don’t see how Britney Spears and Paris Hilton can sue John McCain over the (extremely juvenile) political commercial. Photos and footage of Spears and Hilton are used all the time in broadcast, print and internet news media, for commercial profit, without any permission from or compensation to Spears or Hilton. It would be even more acceptable to use their photographs in a political advertisement. I would only see a problem if the ad was truly libelous.
Trivia of the day:
Britney Spears is my third cousin, twice removed. Her grandmother Emma Jean Forbes (Spears) was my third cousin. Our common ancestor was Jesse Warren Ball (1808-1880), who was my great-great-grandfather and had so many children that it wasn’t even funny.
As for Paris Hilton, her great-grandfather was once married to an actress, whose sister was also an actress. This step-great-grand-aunt of Paris Hilton starred on a television series about life in rural Vermont, in which a second cousin (once removed) of mine also starred.
Why haven’t the people who criticized Edwards for spending $400 on a haircut said anything about McCain spending $520 on a pair of Ferragamo shoes?
$520 for shoes?? That is cheap. Since when have haircuts been as expensive as shoes?? Well what can you expect from the silky one. hheheehehe
I wonder why the silky one hasn’t come out against the National Enquirer report??? Hnmmmmmmmmm hheheehhehehe
McCain wasn’t much of a man in 2000, either.
13 mark
Aw, his lead is small. Still leading.
Well, it seems like john McCain has effectively shut down discussion of his ads that LIED about Barack Obama by running a new, really stupid one that complains about how popular Barack Obama is compared to McCain. One could argue that McCain’s move from outright lying to mere obscure irrelavence in an improvement. But McCain is still lying.
He’s lying when he says that his proposals to “drill here; drill now” will result in “paying less.” Did you know that Barack Obama was completely correct when he said that if Americans properly inflated their automobile tires it would do more good than offshore drilling? In fact, it will result in the freeing of four times as many barrels of oil as offshore drilling (offshore drilling 22K BBL/day by 2030, tire pressure 88K BBL/day tomorrow), and it would be RIGHT NOW.
And speaking of the McCain of 2000, in 2000 John McCain was AGAINST lifting the offshore drilling moratorium.
Just a little more “straight talk” from the flippiest flopper who ever spent 26 years on a back bench in Washington.
I think McCain’s ad probably helps Obama by showing image after image of him in front of adoring crowds chanting his name. No ne listens to what the ads say.
I may be “dumb as shit” as kirkregard (#3) would seem to suggest. But even brilliant intellectuals such as kirkregard (#3) can, from time-to-time, overlook subtle messages that propagandists (and other successful marketing teams) get results with…
Today on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,”, David Gergen, the conservative commentator and presidential advisor to Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gergen ), who hails from North Carolina, suggested that McCain’s “The One” ad, rather than being simply blasphemous, was racist. Gergen said the ad suggests that Obama is “uppity”, and to folks from the south, the characterization comes across as the familiar racist “get back in your place” admonishment.
Interesting–especially when viewed alongside the choices of the sexually provocative (and white) Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton in McCain’s related ad, released with Madison Avenue-like orchestrated precision, typical of today’s successful advertising campaigns (Horrors! a successful black guy juxtaposed with two up-scale white girls!).
Darryl, you’re right–marketing experts don’t pull their message details out of their arse. You can rest assured that someone like Frank Luntz ( http://www.yuricareport.com/Do.....ntury.html ) ran a number of options by focus groups to come-up with the best selections for the McCain ad campaign message. While not being deliberately and overtly racist, when viewed as a whole, they play on stereotypes which happen to be racist, using code-words and images that very likely tested in focus groups as generating negative feelings among likely voters in swing states.
What I’m saying here is that while the McCain campaign didn’t necessarily set-out to be racist, they came-up with something that, in result, is exactly the same as being racist.
Same as the water boarding “interrogation technique” (While not specifically setting-out to nearly drown a captured suspected terrorist per se, they accomplish what is exactly the same thing as near-drowning).
It’s the McSame “Republican” thing.
I’m inclined to give Gergen’s observation a measure of consideration. If anyone played the “race card”, it would appear that McCain called the hand with near-scientific marketing precision, however covered, cowardly and worthy of the KGB Totalitarianism award. No thank you for that kind of “leadership”. I’ll stick with the natural-born American kind coming from Obama, proven time and again. The “Right Stuff”, patriotic and intelligent.
Is Obama ready to lead? The answer clearly is a resounding, unequivocal YES! Definitely. No doubt whatsoever. Not only does America deserve the natural-born ture leadership strength that Obama displays, we need it. Now.
‘McCain is an immature politician’
Duh! That’s because he’s a deeply immature PERSON. You’d think at 72, he’d have better things to do than chase pussy….but apparently not.