How low can they go? Well, if this new ad is any indication, quite a bit further. It is yet another in the train of “lighthearted” ads that purportedly poke fun at Obama’s so-called celebrity status. This is seemingly driven by a deep psychological trauma on the part of the once-dashing political maverick, adored by the media, a household name who appeared in manifold movies and other outlets of popular culture. The king of celebrity politicians has been dethroned, and he is not at all happy about it. As he lashes out, these ads have become a sign of how bankrupt his campaign has become.
I always knew McCain would not seriously fight on the issues. (Abortion? Yeah right). Since the early 1990s, while the Democrats have run on detailed policy platforms, Republicans huffed and strutted about their superior characters, in the process casting aspersions on the character and good name of their opponents, often aided and abetted by a media that hates boring policy debates and delights in this kind of fanciful fluff. And after the tragedy of the last 8 years, a tragedy that more than anything else explains the rise of the Obama phenomenon, McCain has embraced this tactic with a vengeance. In the process, his campaign is rapidly turning into one of the low marks in American policy history, a perfect storm of vacuousness, dishonesty, and appeal to prejudice.
Let’s see the latest ad through these lens. First off, the point about Obama pledging to increase taxes on those making $42,000 a year is simply a lie. I guess the bar for truth has been lowered over the past eight years, with a creeping nihilism that allows politicians to simply tell lies and get away with it as the media has simply abrogated its watchdog responsibilities. And anyway, the media would need to actually do some real research to point this out– and why talk about boring tax policy when we can talk about Paris Hilton instead? You have to hand it to them, the Republicans know how the media think, and exploit it brilliantly.
The ad ends with the phrase “Hot Chicks Dig Obama”. I’m not joking. When I suggested in the past that the McCain campaign was appealing to racism by showing a charismatic black man with ultra-blond starlets like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears (these particular celebrities), I was criticized. The mainstream media and commentariat also tut-tutted at such an unseemly suggestion. To which I respond: wake up. We can now read in black and white the kind of advice Mark Penn was offering Hillary Clinton, telling her to paint her opponent as the un-American other, the man who was simply too different from the mainstream to garner public support. Maybe in 2050 he will be electable, sneered Penn. Let me simply ask this: can you imagine what the Mark Penns of the McCain campaign, the people who trained under Lee Atwater and Karl Rove (including Karl Rove himself) are advising? After all, Penn is a rank amateur next to these people.
I think we can get a flavor of what they are saying from these ads. Paris Hilton. Britney Spears. Hot Chicks Dig Obama. Is there any greater lingering racism in America than the fear of sexual conquest of white women by black men? This taps into the deepest pool of racism in this country. I simply cannot believe this is all a big coincidence, a wild overreaction. For there is precedent. In the one close Senate race in 2006 that the Democrats lost, the Republican Bob Corker beat the Democrat Harold Ford in Tennessee. He did so on the back of a highly controversial ad. The ad attacks Ford for having a playboy image, and ends with a young blond woman looking into the camera, winking, and saying “Harold, Call Me.” Funnily enough, Corker himself called for the ad to be pulled, deeming it distasteful. It was not, and Corker won, an outlier in that electoral season. The Republican message gurus paid attention.
Of course, there is no evidence whatsoever that Obama is anything but a devoted family. Still, planting insinuations that “hot chicks dig him” can have the same effect. Do I personally believe John McCain is racist? No, I do not. But I do believe he is appealing to the worst instincts in people, tapping into the residue of racism, one of the great evils in American history, to score political points. And I would point out that racism is intrinsically evil, and can never be supported, flirted with, or exploited.
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