I wanted to post this yesterday but Blogger was down for a scheduled update or something. It always goes down at like 4pm PST, which I don't think the people of Blogger realize is the worst time for it to be down because it's the end of the work day here and you are always sort of stalling for time because you can't start a new project at work but instead are just trying to do little things. At least, I am. However. Back to it.
So the news of yesterday is that the North Carolina Republican party plans to run an ad starting Monday that shows clips of Reverend Wright and says Barack Obama is "just too extreme for North Carolina." It's ostensibly against the two Democrats running for governor there, but obviously it's not really, and it's more useless shit. What's interesting about it is that McCain is denouncing the ad and saying that "There's no place for that kind of campaigning, the American people don't want it, period." I thought this was pretty fascinating because that piece on McCain in the David Foster Wallace book I mentioned a while ago on this blog talks about how smooth McCain and his team were in 2000 as far as subtly negotiating the negative aspects of campaigning, in order to benefit from others' negativity and gloss over his own. Sadly I loaned the book to my mom, so I can't find the spot, but it was nevertheless the first thing I thought of when, at the gym today, I saw some bit on CNN saying that McCain can look like a friendly teddy bear by denouncing the ad, but that he will still benefit from the ad being out there because a) it's already out (God bless, or is it God damn?, YouTube), and b) it's not like he really has much right to complain about it I guess. Of course his campaign vehemently denied that charge, but it's still pretty fascinating.
Another reason I'd like to see Obama go up against McCain this November is that I really think that it might lead to a more civil campaign than if Clinton was in the race, just because too many people hate her and because she's such a lightning rod for all this quibbling shit.
The ad has been taken down in a few spots (like the New York Times' Caucus), but you should probably be able to see it over at Wonkette. It's classic terrible campaign ad.
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2 comments:
your assessment of mcCain's reaction to the negative ad isn't very fair. if he hadn't said anything about the ads you'd be going off about how he didn't say something disparaging about the ads. but when he does, he's still bad cause he only said it to look good and didn't really mean it. it seems like its basically damned if he does damned if he doesn't.
if anything mcCain could have kept his mouth closed and not fuel anymore allegations about how he's a democrat in republican clothing by speaking out against something his party is planning to do. but he didn't.
i think sometimes people get a bad opinion of someone and no matter what they do, they spin it in a negative light.
i guess i should have clarified. i don't really know for sure, or even think for sure, that mccain is like deliberately spinning this to be good for him. it was just something that came up.
also, it's funny, because i think that he's a republican in maverick's clothing. :) flip side of the coin i guess. i used to be kind of ok with mccain but as this election proceeds i'm more and more opposed to him. but you know, we can agree to disagree. i try to be fairminded... i really do appreciate you calling me on things when you think i'm not being so.
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