They’ve been calling him The One for weeks.  They’re up to 1999 with their references!

I know I’m a left-wing nutball and all, but it didn’t strike me as particularly damning to show ordinary people getting really excited about Obama.  Really it just seems mean.  “Grrrr, you punk kids are getting excited for stupid reasons!  Gr!”

to be fair, i don’t kno many people who can eat when they see or hear or even think about john mccain.

...now, drinking enormous quantities of alcohol, on the other hand…

The real problem here is that we’re getting past the “Obama’s shallow but popular stage” to the “local news does dumb interviews with people”

We’ve been in the latter stage for more than 30 years. After that long, even a Republican can figure out how to snag a few fair-use clips. Especially when that Republican has nothing to offer except for the failed policies he embraced since 2000.

Sure, to us, it looks retarded and desperate—but I am betting it resonates with its intended audience because it looks retarded and desperate to people like us.

I wouldn’t get too worried. The intended audience (hard-working, white Americans over 45 clinging to guns and Jeebus and racism) wasn’t going to vote for Obama in any case. And unless McCain goes full-bore appealing to the Know-Nothings (and risks alienating the various flavours of neoCon in the process), the intended audience might not vote for him either.

... so, once again, McCain’s ads are all about his opponent ... and nothing about himself.

This is the dumbest ad ever. Like, seriously, who does McCain have designing these things for him?

I agree with Gracchus - this whole ad campaign is designed for people who were never, ever, going to vote Obama in the first place.  He’s just trying to make sure they vote McCain as opposed to a third-party or just not showing up.  More and more I become convinced that the McCain campaign knows if they can’t make an appeal to the 10-15% of the population that makes up the extreme right-wing, he’s toast.  Bush was able to take this group for granted, and focus his appeal on getting enough of the other voters to put him over the top.  McCain can’t take this group for granted - they already hate him, and I’m sure the Sturgis stuff didn’t play well with them - so he has to make an effort to show them he’s worthy of their votes. However, in doing that, he risks totally alienating the rest of the electorate. On the flip side, as Gracchus points out, as soon as he quits playing to that 10-15%, he’ll lose a huge chunk of them.

I do appreciate the fact that John McCain’s pop culture references have moved up to the early 90s now

Sure, but when you consider how up-to-date his target audience is likely to be . . . “Wayne’s World” seems about right for them.

I thought it was a pretty good idea for an ad- I absolutely loved the closing Wayne’s World clip- but i’m suprized they couldn’t dig up some more doe-eyed, confused-looking Obama supporters. I mean, any political event, you can’t throw a brick without hitting some kind of loon.

//like, if the whole ad had people like the one addled girl going on about his “aura”. that would be a good ad.

You know I have to agree with Indy here, in a way.  The reason the ad falls completely flat is that most of the Obama supporters seem like everyday people who are reasonably well-informed and not fringey or wacky or stupid.  To me, the ad says, “Obama is really inspiring.  Everybody loves Obama.  People like you support Obama.  Ordinary folks all over the country plan to vote for Obama.  Vote for McCain anyway!  Those people are assholes!”  Which, obviously, dumbest idea ever.  Unless you’re really worried about attracting the anti-social basement-dwelling crank vote.

These ads just amaze me - not that they exist, but that they’re official. There’s nothing in this ad that a fan with a Tivo couldn’t do just as well, except perhaps the professional quality of the voiceover announcer. And this is a web video, so their only hope is that it goes viral; they don’t need the official conneciton to get the ad placed on television. And it’s got the campaign’s name on it, although because it’s not for broadcast it doesn’t have McCain approving it in person. How dumb is that?

The Jedreport, which so far as I know is one hobbyist without great resources or unusual professional abilities in making videos, made videos similarly assembled of news clips and commentary (albeit videos that were less puerile and less divisive) attacking missteps by the Clinton campaign during the primaries. Can’t McCain find any supporters to do this crap for him?

The contempt for the American voter in these ads is disgusting. Just like the more fervent Hillary supporters during the primaries (e.g. Lambert of corrente), McCain has declared himself arbiter of appropriate expressions of political support. Anyone who crosses the line is subject to derision. What an anti-democratic fuck.

i’m suprized they couldn’t dig up some more doe-eyed, confused-looking Obama supporters.

I was half expecting to see the stoner girl from the old Apple commercial (Ellen Feiss) and “Steve” the drug-busted Dell spokesman offering their befuddled enthusiasm for Obama. They would have been perfectly cast, although the cultural references would have been too bleeding edge for McCain and his audience.

Dooood, yer gettin’ Barack!

Vote for me because everyone loves my opponent!
Oh, and you voters get off my lawn.
I’m John McCain, and I zzzzzzz er, approved this message.

I fail to see how showing that people love Obama helps McCain unless we are to understand that the young people in the video should not be trusted because they are not only enough to make a good political position….mmmm…yeah…ageist.

but seriously, the ad is trying to tell people Obama is a novice who will plunder tax money from the workers and that he’s getting by on image, not substance. But it is designed to appeal to the “get off my lawn” crowd; anyone who doesn’t have a knee jerk reaction will find it’s easy enough to check on their tax plans.

If this is all they have, they’re it pretty bad straits.  One might say desperate straits.  But if they keep giving the ad agency money for nothing, maybe someday they will get their MTV.

IM IN UR WHITE HOWZ, STEALIN YUR WHITE WYNINS!

Sirk: LOL WUT

No seriously, you lost me.

alas, the youtube version has been ganked and the official one on the McCain website has had the awesome “Wayne’s World” clip at the end edited out. damn. that’s what made it for me.