Sen. Barack Obama has swept aside a characterisation of him as a vacuous celebrity in a new commercial broadcast by Sen John McCain's campaign team.
The adverts, likening Obama to celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, have kicked off a new negative phase of the campaign from the McCain camp. The adverts hint that, while the young Illinois senator has the undoubted capacity and charisma to draw huge crowds (the commercials showed shots of the recent huge Obama rally in Berlin), like the pop icons, he does not have the capacity to lead.
McCain himself was the target of an untrue whisper campaign during the Republican primaries in 2000, alleged to have been started by Rove, which saw the senator subjected to rumours that he had fathered a baby by a black woman. McCain and his wife had adopted a Bangladeshi child, however the rumours played their part in eroding McCain's lead over Bush.
The adverts, likening Obama to celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, have kicked off a new negative phase of the campaign from the McCain camp. The adverts hint that, while the young Illinois senator has the undoubted capacity and charisma to draw huge crowds (the commercials showed shots of the recent huge Obama rally in Berlin), like the pop icons, he does not have the capacity to lead.
"He's the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?" the ad asks. [source]The McCain campaign team has stepped up its anti-Obama rhetoric in recent days in tactics reminiscent of legendary (infamous?) political operative Karl Rove who used attack ads to great effect to win his boss, George W. Bush two terms in the White House.
McCain himself was the target of an untrue whisper campaign during the Republican primaries in 2000, alleged to have been started by Rove, which saw the senator subjected to rumours that he had fathered a baby by a black woman. McCain and his wife had adopted a Bangladeshi child, however the rumours played their part in eroding McCain's lead over Bush.
McCain campaign manager Rick Davis fended off criticism that the commercials were negative.
"What we decided to do is find the top three international celebrities in theThe attack ads have for the first time signalled a new, aggressive shift in strategy from the McCain camp. Frustrated by the lack of media attention and angered at being compared to a younger, more charismatic opponent, the Republican are now focusing on Obama's perceived weakness -- a view amongst sections of the voting public that he is a political lightweight.
world, and I would say from our indications, Britney and Paris came in
second and third.
"Will people think of this as negative advertising? Look, it is the most entertaining thing I have seen on TV in a while.
"It is not our campaign that is trying to make him into an international
celebrity. It's his campaign. I don't know Paris Hilton and Britney
Spears but they are international celebrities, so, you know, apples to
apples." [source]
Recent opinion polls, though showing Obama with a slight lead overall, indicate him trailing the veteran war hero by as much as twenty points on the question of preferred military commander-in-chief.
The attack strategy though, does not come without significant risks says one of McCain's closest former confidantes. John Weaver, who resigned from the Mccain campaign last year, told the U.S. media the tactics belittled the Arizona senator as much as they did Obama in voter's eyes.
"For McCain to win in such troubled times, he needs to begin telling the American people how he intends to lead us," said Mr Weaver, who has been in exile from the McCain camp after he resigned last year. "That McCain exists. He can inspire the country to greatness."Sen. Obama, on a four-state campaign tour, has accused the McCain camp of running a scare campaign against him, calling on him to properly focus on the relevant issues.
He added: "There is legitimate mockery of a political campaign now, and it isn't at Obama's. For McCain's sake, this tomfoolery needs to stop." [source]
"So far all we've been hearing about is Paris Hilton. I do have to ask my opponent: Is that the best you can do? Is that what this election is really all about? Is that worthy of the American people." [source]
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Barack Obama as next President of The United States of America
The die is cast and for reasons that only a privileged few know, you Sir, will be the next President of the United States of America. Your next 4 years will be a turning point in US history and planet earth. CHANGE, your advisors and high stake investors offer the nation will undoubtedly be the same rhetoric and empty promises that make up a political campaign, that campaigns for appointment for any public office in America.
The White House will be the Black House to some, the Aryan Brothers of America will not be so happy, but yet will blame you and your staff if you fail, which will reinforce their belief that the Aryan Nation is the true leader for America. The religious zealots will be busy bees making nests to survive the onslaught of lies, corruption and deceit. Business enterprises and other competing nations will capitalize off of your inexperience in the art of corruption and murder. The organized crime organizations from different nations including our own will benefit from the lack of control over national crime.
Military governments including our own will test your tolerance to pain and deception and trick you into needless and profitable domestic and international conflict. You will no doubt attempt to colorize your staff to soften the race conflict once in office.
As President you will be President. Nations will respect you only for your title of office. Americans will soon see after your appointment as President that your intentions were manipulated by those that make the rules. You will fill the spot in history as planned, and nothing more.
You will never while in office be able to pull the troops from conflict in any land we are engaged in. As a matter of fact we as a nation will be engaged in a new conflict of war, which will galvanize Americans to seek a different form of government and a different and honest Congress.
You will attempt to shore up Americas problems with false promise and lies, because you cannot directly affect the CHANGE you promised.
Your frustration will be your downfall while in office, and your co-dependence on those that you trust will also add to your demise.
Our Armed Forces in rank will respect you as good soldiers they are, but those under them will not, and for good reasons, that only a good soldier knows.
America will not be America until its government respects the People, and tells the truth. America is a Republic, not a Democracy or Fascist Government or is it?
Until you can walk thru the streets and neighborhoods of America unaided by Secret Service or any other law enforcement agency you will not be respected by the many, only by the fearful and selfish few. Americans can protect their leaders if they are honest and respectful of the people they were elected to serve. Our Government has forsaken us for many hundreds of years, and now we will wait until your 4 years are finished for us to come to fruition.
CHANGE FOR AMERICA FOR AMERICANS!
The American Republic
A Sovereign Republic
Oh shut up !
I didn't understand a word of Judah Ben Hur's bloated comment, other than that, by using pompous-sounding phrases he was attempting to preach something or other. Thank God for a country that enables witless idiots like Judah Ben Hur to mouth off, and for an unlikely but brilliant candidate like Obama to (probably) become President.
Thanks for your comments folks, yes its true, Obama (maybe more than any other presidential candidate) is the subject of a great deal of comment. Is this his message of Change? Or a more visceral reaction to his candidacy? I'd be interested in your replies.
This one's from the Republicans, Obama, may he win the election, is a Democrat. If he wins, and I hope he does from an international stand point, he will be the FIRST black president. It will go eons for equal rights for all. Now only if he were a woman it would be the greatest step forward for equal rights. Oh well. At least human rights will jump forwards exponentially if he wins.
Thanks for your comments D.Nichol and Angel. I wonder how much a part race will be a factor (and age for McCain) in the presidential race? Or will the majority look to issues such the Iraq war and the economy? And what role will the religious conservatives play?
For me this is one of the more fascinating elections, how about you?
BARACK OBAMA aka 'the new-but-not-improved AD icon JOE ISUZU who you sorta likes even though he lies to your face' is miffed that this moody MARXIST is being compared to celebutards PARIS & BRITNEY!!! After all 'BARRY' OBAMA's mantra is take the wealth from BIG-OIL and give it to the people. NO to drilling but YES to inflating tires for oue energy problems. OBAMA has just stated in MICHIGAN home of so many moody MARXISTS:"...we must end the AGE OF OIL now"!!! BARRY what a yutz!!! EENIER MALO KEEKEE BOBO SCWATZEDYCKE which means: DON'T TRUST ANYONE - EVEN IF THEY ARE BLACK LIKE ME!!! DEMBHOLES always such silly socialist wankers.
geee... ya think the rapper poet zyskaj wrote this? he's a GOPher?? I'm zo surprized...
Rap poet Zyskandar A. Jaimot wants you to vote for Republican McCain??
Wankers in the USA?? Like we even know what a Marxist is beyond a socialist (and America has always had a deep streak of socialism, supposedly tempered by common sense funding and spending anyway) as long as you call it anything but socialism.
'Tis lovely to watch them squirm, pierced by the roasting spit through their greedy, racist little heart remnants as the fire builds beneath them. It's soooo long until noon, Jan 20 2009. "Big Oil" is quite unhappy it seems, which makes me very happy. BTW, it's no to panicked, unnecessarily destructive, currently banned drilling in certain specific areas:
"OBAMA's mantra is take the wealth from BIG-OIL and give it to the people. NO to drilling but YES to inflating tires for oue energy problems. OBAMA has just stated in MICHIGAN home of so many moody MARXISTS:"...we must end the AGE OF OIL now"!!! BARRY what a yutz!!! EENIER MALO KEEKEE BOBO SCWATZEDYCKE which means: DON'T TRUST ANYONE - EVEN IF THEY ARE BLACK LIKE ME!!!"
We're a Democratic Republic, for accuracy's sake. That's the messy, gooey part of the whole thing that uses maintaining consistency as a means of ensuring longevity.
This whole oil drilling discussion is just the phony public side of a lame duck thief trying to hand out as much public property and drilling rights good for as long as possible to his friends and family and friends of friends and their families.
Between now and January 20, 2009, it will be impossible to ignore the blatant, public thefts. Be complicit, keep your mouth shut.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/50726/zyskandar_jaimot.html
That link is from the real Zyskandar A. Jaimot, obviously someone who scares the hell out of this coward illegally posting under someone else's name (and his friends around the 'net).
I wonder which one it is? McCain volunteers or McCain staff?
The author of this comment even managed to get racism and anti-lesbianism in there in one word: "SCWATZEDYCKE" or the infamous "schwartze (black) dyke".
He will win and iam not talking about white head
Obama & McCain these are our choices -- pathetic at best. One uses a lot of words to say nothing, the other can't remember what he just said.
The last seven year have been a complete disaster. While Bush was playing cowboy on the ranch he must have forgot to read the memo about terrorist plans to hijack planes and crash into building. He claimed that this was not actionable. Well, if he told the airlines about this they could have made sure the cockpit would never be comprimised while in the air. A $20 bolt from home depot would have prevented our national calamity. Then the faked documents to justify Iraq. The list goes on. And Mccain was the enabler. The only question should be, "Is Obama a resonable man?" Clearly the answer is yes. He doesn't have to be a genius to do better than the GOP has done the last seven years. AND as for is lack of internaional experience - that didn't stop the Republicains from voting for Bush so why make an issue now.
The Bush years have not been good, but blaming him for terrorist hijacking the planes is ridiculous. He'd been in office 9mos, that plan had been in the works for years. And in fact the information was also very available during the Clinton years and nothing was done.
How can you say he's a reasonable man you really know nothing about him. Bush was elected so let's do it again? If the man was just say something he thinks and stick to it I could believe in him. I won't drink the KoolAid because he's a smooth talker and black. On the other hand McCain seems like a bitter angry old man. But just because he doesn't support immediate pullout doesn't make him a Bush enabler. He's been a thorn in the side of the Republican party for a long time.
The real Zyskandar A. Jaimot knows that BARACK OBAMA 'a made-up character like that of JORDAN BAKER is "...irretrievably dishonest" see OBAMA'S COMMENTS on how magically he falsified "...his parents meeting each other at a civil rights march in Selma" and other utter fabrications as opposed to SENATURD JOHN'the-old-fool'McCAIN's living off his 2nd wife's money after abandoning his first wife after a car crash or his IDJIT support of the MUSLIMS in KOSOVO because it was the PC THING to do at the time!!! IN SHORT BOTH SENATURD's OBAMA + McCAIN are the two most bathetic pretenders ever to want to be President!!! Perhaps they should both take lessons from former SENATURD JOHN EDWARDS on how to 'drill' his video-aides or pump air into them???!!! Ha - two creatures created by the NATIONAL ^SSHOLE MEDIA to plague all of us!!!
Not quite my style but I do agree. Unfortunately one of them is going to be President. And a lot of us will have to vote the lessor of two evils. Although there's a lot to dislike at least you basically know what your getting with McCain. It's funny the media always seemed to like McCain when he was causing republicans problems but now that he's up against a real democrat they've obviously turned on him. It's unfortunate Ron Paul doesn't fit the American Presidential image.
This Republican video which drags out saber rattling NRA president Charlton Heston " from his dead cold hands" as Moses parting the sea is a vision of the past. Painting Obama as the anti-Christ has brought back the bitter vile taste of the 2004 election Evangelista’s who helped elect a buffoon in George Bush.
Never in the history of the United States has an idiot puppet President been so damaging to the moral, economy, financial, and spiritual lives of Americans.
Yet Ben Laden tapes his videos often enough to laugh at Bush who hasn’t even figured out where Ben is hiding while the rest of the world can put an “x” on a map or find him with a GPS. The lost souls of Katrina numbered into the thousands due to Bush’s incompetence as he was too busy with a luncheon engagement for the first 24 hours no one reacted to the dire emergencies in New Orleans.
Obama has no ties to this mess of the Bush family of oil partners with Saudi Arabs and Texas oil men and oil company executives who continue to gouge working people at the pumps. The Saudi’s have long had close relationships with the Bush family and Senator McCain is a carbon copy carry on as usual with Bush polices- there are no differences. He will continue mortgaging the lives of your grandchildren who will be in debt to China for the rest of their lives. China is paying for this war in the wrong country and you do not have to be a scholar to figure out the economic implications of being totally in debt to a communist country. By the way, China loves the Bush Brothers and invited Bush Senior and Bush Junior to the games while other leaders did not send their highest political leaders to make a statement against Chinese aggression towards Tibet.
Senator Obama would with his intelligence, and advisors who have the American safety and good at heart, could do clearly much more effective release from these Bush disastrous policies of the last 8 whole long depressing years.
Bush faked, lied and fabricated evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to finish off the job his father failed to do, who was yet another Republican President.
So what you have is a series of blundering Republican Presidents do you really think that today, in our economic state of recession, sky high prices of oil and gas, health care for only the rich, Katrina disasters which will continue and over 4,000 dead American soldiers in the wrong war in the wrong country and over 140,000 dead Iraq civilians, do you really think we would trust another Republican President?
A very eloquent diatribe of mostly feelings I must say. I tired of hearing that Bush did something wrong in Katrina. The facts are FEMA is an organizational tool called in by state Governors. It did what it has always done. It came in when the Governor of Louisiana asked for it. This criticism of Bush is much like the criticism he received because he was speaking to children at the time of 9/11. If he had been eating lunch at the time he would have received the same flack from people who hate republicans and don't need any facts to complain about them. He also has nothing to do with oil prices, it simply a ridiculous statement. It's a commodity like any other and subject to market forces. The war is another ballgame he completely lost me on that one. But clamoring for withdrawal is not the answer.
I question Obama's meteoric rise in popularity. I believe it a media driven brainwashing. He's pumped up by a press. Though he is a brilliant speaker, he speaks of nothing. I couldn't tell you how he lands on any major subject. His opinions drift as he seems to learn on the fly. I don't know if he's a good man or the right man. I don't know if McCain is the right man but he does have the experience. And when tallying the pro's and con's he has something substantial in the pro's other than hopes and feelings. But when the time to vote comes I'll be punching the chad out with some doubt.
The 'greatest' failure of President BUSH is his absolute failure of anticipating or doing anything about the RUSSIAN invasion of GEORGIA - or VLADDIE'the-new-bloody-czar' in the threats against POLAND, UKRAINE or any other former SOVIET captive country!!! ]Both D^CKHEAD and JOHN'the-old-fool'McCAIN cheered-on KOSOVO(read the MOSLEMS) to take parts of SERBIA(read Christian-assholes)in spite of RUSSIA's protestations. OBAMA was still learning how to be a 'street activist' in sleazy CHICAGO while this foreignness was happening. Two potential president's with nary a clue about about anything - both having graduated from so-called prestigious colleges 'JOHN'the-old-fool' from ANNAPOLIS - 'BARRY' first from COLUMBIA then from HARVARD LAW. Oh to have a true scholar like JOHN'the-Fraud'KERRY who was a C- student at YALE and then a prestigious graduate of the MASSACHUSETTS-POLS punk-school of SUFFOLK LAW!!!
If the Georgians didn't anticipate this how was Bush supposed to? It's also not an easy place for US military to support, not that would we confront the Russian militarily anyway. No one with any real brains would want to be President. Have you seen what they look like 8 years later?