With cries of foul coming from the Obama campaign and the media this week about recent McCain ads, it calls into question whether it is the Obama strategy to play victim. The Celeb ad, which garnered the most attention for comparing Senator Obama’s celebrity status to that of Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears doesn’t seem to merit the screams of protest that it received. This ad along with a couple others poke fun at Senator Obama’s celebrity and cult-like following, and simply ask if he is ready to lead. This isn’t a ‘Swift Boat’ attack or ‘Willy Horton’ ad; these ads use humor to puncture the media’s euphoric image of Senator Obama. They weren’t even done under the auspices of a ‘third party organization’ like most controversial ads are. The McCain campaign called Obama on an issue, and put it in ad form. Frankly Senator Clinton’s remark that, “Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign, I will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign, and Senator Obama will bring a speech he gave in 2002″* is much harsher and to the point than these ads that tease Senator Obama about his celebrity status.
However, the problem isn’t just that some people are hysterically accusing Senator McCain of going negative; that’s politics. Many of these complaints are trying to manufacture victim status for Senator Obama. While this is not shocking from publications like the Huffington Post, New York Times, or other lefty blogs; Senator Obama has done it himself by bringing race back into the election. He stated while campaigning, [That McCain and the GOP will say] “You know, he’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name, you know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills,” and he’s said that several times. To compound this problem he made a very similar statement back in June at a fundraiser saying, “We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. They’re going to say you know what, He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. Did I mention he’s black?” The problem with this charge is that there is zero evidence of it being true. Senator McCain has reprimanded people for using Senator Obama’s middle name, and has stated that he won’t use Reverend Wright as a campaign issue. This even though many see questions about the connection between Wright and Obama as legitimate. Most importantly, McCain and his campaign have made NO racially charged remarks, unlike a number of Obama supporters have. The Obama campaign after being called on using the race card by the McCain campaign admitted that the McCain campaign is not racist, and has not used race as an issue.
So this leaves questions; which is a lower form of politics a campaign making fun of a candidate’s celebrity, or a campaign falsely eluding to racism? Is this a tactic? Is the Obama campaign trying to inoculate Senator Obama from the question of experience by making these experience questions sound prejudice? Maybe a reporter should ask Bill Clinton if he thinks the Obama campaign is using race issues to promote his campaign, as he has previously stated that he felt ‘the race card’ had been used on him. Hillary supporters may have something to say on this topic as well. There does seem to be a pattern with the Obama campaign crying foul while doing something under-handed themselves, as reported on by Politico last month in the article Who’s Smearing Whom.
Filed under: Clinton, McCain, Obama, Politics | Tagged: race, experience, race card, racial division, smears, political smears, political ads, political celebrity, under handed, bill clinton, hillary clinton, mccain ads, victim, victimization, vitim card, commander in chief test, swift boat, willie horton
If we could harness the power from your spin, we could solve the energy crisis.
Britney Spears and McCain 2008 Dream Ticket..Craig
http://craigrant.com/2008/08/04/britney-and-mccain-in-2008/
Britney, Paris, and Obama: A Trio Locked in History!
In a few short days the 2008 Presidential race will finally be finished… over… done… complete! That is when the Monday- morning-quarterbacking will commence as high paid analysts and brainiac historians will studiously pore over each detail of the General election: the good, the bad, and the ugly to determine just how the winner won and the loser lost.
Should Senator John McCain be fortunate enough to pull a win out of the bag, history will reveal that the game changing moment… that one moment (it happens by the way in all campaigns) which turned Obama’s world upside-down, is this new “Britney, Paris, and Obama” ad. Indeed, on the surface, the ad appears nonsensical and juvenile, both in worth and presentation. Aw… but therein is the mastery of this ad. And, whoever designed it will be lauded for years-to-come for the ad’s long term effectiveness!
Now, the first outcome of the ‘ad’ was to cause a national raucous to be raised. Bait-takers, such as the Huffington Post, who called the ad ‘racist’… and MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski and the likes, could be depended on to raise-the-racism trumpet and create that ‘noise’. True to form, the ‘noise’ has been raised, and by design, has caused many to focus on the age-old “Mandingo slave stereotype” or… young blonde, white woman and good looking black man parody. Consequently, many will spend the next 90-days of the election stewing over that… while the real message of the ad lingers in the air.
Then, there are others who are interpreting the ad as meaning Obama, Paris, and Britney are superfluous media creations––void of substance or any other attributable or meaningful contribution to society, to date. For sure… those following that particular vein of thought are also being diverted (for the time being) from grasping the true essence of… and genious of this ‘ad’.
Even Senator Obama allowed himself to fall into that “well-set” trap door, as he, by responding to the ad… demonstrated his irritation with its substance. Here are his comments on the ad during a recent campaign stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa:
“…you’d think we could have a serious debate,” Obama said. “But so far, all we’ve been hearing about is Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. I mean, I do have to ask my opponent, is that the best you can come up with? Is that really what this election is about? Is that what is worthy of the American people?”
And right there… in Obama’s comments… is the point-driving essence of that ‘ad’. It’s not about the racial aspect… and forget about its painting Obama/ Britney/Paris as ‘air-heads’. What this ad really does is shrewdly remind the American public of what Obama so blatantly spoke: how sick, and tired, and weary, and worn-out, and exhausted, and burnt-out they are of hearing about Britney, Paris, and Obama–– all the time.
The media’s overblown coverage of those three have made their very names nauseating to the general public. People don’t want to hear their names, see their faces or hear about any more of their previous or future escapades… let alone ‘any’ further information about them. Period! Truth be told, every time that ‘ad’ plays (and it is sure to play non-stop from now until November) Senator Obama will understand the art-of-that-ad… as his poll numbers will be par to those of Britney and Paris by then.
So, if McCain should win… let the history books reflect that it was the media and the media pundits’ attempt to ram Obama down the throats of Internet savvy Americans… that killed the presidency of Barack Obama.
If you have to ask the question if it’s Obama’s strategy to play victim, then you already know the answer.
And if that’s his best front, which it appears to be, then he’s even more unqualified to be commander-in-chief of our Armed Forces, chief executive of our country and he who will stand up to our enemies, foreign and domestic.
Oh, wait, sorry: He may actually be among our domestic enemies.
But back to his strategy of playing victim-something he likely absorbed from his time at TUCC, for example-why else would he get such support among leftists, liberals and the Democrat leadership-well, perhaps, gaggle is better, since they’ve exhibited no leadership since they’ve been in control-in Congress?
And, indeed, as a poster suggested, the wrongly named “news” media and the liberal punditocracy have been in overdrive attempting to ram Obama downs the throats of the electorate. To me, that’s true whether said electorate member is or is not Internet savvy.
Thing is, the rammers of Obama apparently don’t have the sense to comprehend the transparency of their ruse and/or when said electorate has either gagged or simply puked.
Seems to me, his whole campaign has been about his being a victim. Abandon by his Muslim father, abandon by his mother. This man has serious issues.
I was born into a Democratic family, I’ll be 62 when the general election happens. That means I have voted in every election straight party. Not this time!! They won’t support Hillary, I will vote for the republicans. The Democratic leadership has lost their morale compass, they will not be rewarded.
Puma Pac
Country before Party
“There does seem to be a pattern with the Obama campaign crying foul while doing something under-handed themselves, as reported on by Politico last month in the article Who’s Smearing Whom.”
This epitomizes the old, ‘if you’ve got nothing to support your position, attack the opposition, ‘ or, better yet, ‘perpetrate an outrage and attribute it to the victim.”
Incredibly, and despite all evidence to the contrary, this seemed to work FOR A SHORT WHILE, as Mainstream Media most certainly colluded with the Obama campaign in spreading these outrageous projections, but it appears that, finally, the Public has caught on and is beginning to notice, to site an oft-used but never-more-appropriate observation, ‘the Emperor indeed not only has no clothes’, but has accused the opposition of pointing it out, and tried to make truthtelling into perfidy.
Clearly, this kind of desperate attempt to defend an untenable position has become so transparent as to become news itself…not a bad thing in times when the last resort of thieves is to charge their victims with thievery.
Yes, Obama plays the victim! Even though he listened to HATE for 20 years about “whites”, “catholics” “jews” and “Italians.”
And he took his children to hear this hate! It is not Obama that is the victim. It is the rest of us.
And if I were Bill Clinton, I would not do one thing to help this man. Obama is the racist, evident by 20 years of Wright, but instead points the finger at everone else.
Obama is a fraud.