Friday, April 18, 2008

JOHN MCCAIN

Two Swings At McCain, Two Misses

A couple of thoughts on recent lines of criticism of John McCain, from the left-of-center "independent groups."

David Brock's new group, Progressive Media USA, is running an ad attacking McCain entitled "Out of Touch"... in Washington D.C.'s media market.

First, isn't the message of John McCain's campaign that he's a reformer, a maverick, and not part of the inside-the-Beltway crowd? In other words, isn't a good thing to be "out of touch" with Washington D.C.?

Second, other than a few scattered red corners of northern Virginia, this ad will be seen in regions that are already throughly Democratic strongholds - the District of Columbia, the Maryland suburbs, and most of the northern Virginia suburbs. Thus, the point of Brock's ad is not to actually dislodge any of McCain's actual support, but to ensure influential inside-the-Beltway liberals see the ads, and think happy thoughts about Brock's group. Thus, they pay good money to circulate a message among themselves, "aren't we great? Isn't the other side's candidate lame? We rock."

Now let's turn to another ad/web video, this one from AmericansComingTogether, entitled, "Younger Than McCain." As you can guess, this one attacks McCain's age, spotlighting lots of things that are younger than McCain, like velcro, the Republic of Iceland, Dick Cheney, color TV, and Burger King. (Of their list, note that Hillary Clinton is only two years or less younger than Indonesia, Velcro, Pakistan, and Burger King. And she's only six years younger than Dick Cheney!)

(The ad also introduces him as "John Sidney McCain." Hey, guess what guys. "Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Hussein Obama." Thanks for making middle names fair game in this contest; I'm sure that will work out well for your side.)

I notice the ad begins by quoting one of McCain's self-mocking jokes, "I'm older than dirt." (I think the usual full version is, "I'm older than dirt and have more scars than Frankenstein.")

There are few things lamer than when a guy tells a self-deprecating joke, and then somebody jumps on that joke as validation of a line of criticism. Mocking oneself is a display of confidence; it's saying, "I am so secure in who I am that I can laugh at my foibles, and I invite you to laugh with me." By comparison, the young voices in the video seem desperate to insist that McCain's age must be disqualifying.

Anyway, if I were on Team McCain, I would make sure that ad runs in central Florida and closed-circuit television of every retirement community in the country.

04/18 10:20 AMShare