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Ridicule the Race Kremlinologists

by Jon Henke | August 8, 2008 at 9:31 AM
in

Now that it's politically convenient for them to do so, the Left is divining racism in every tea leaf.  Kremlinology lives again, but this time it is directed at Republicans.  And practiced by jerks. 

The only way to deal with this is ridicule.

 

 

(via Atlas Blogged)

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Precedent

Submitted by carltonyates on Fri, 08/08/2008 - 21:01.

The "Playboy" ad attacking Harold Ford played on racial stereotypes. I think that the Obama campaign put the McCain campaign on notice that similar attacks would cause lots of blowback. Considering the fact that the operatives who created the "Playboy" ad now work for McCain, similar sexually charged smears should be expected.

I do think Bob Herbert's analysis was ridiculous and deserving of ridicule. Such paranoia can cause blowback against Obama and Herbert should know this. There are plenty of valuable attack lines against McCain, using subliminal, sexualized imagery is not one of them, yet.

Both Herbert and David Gergen...

Submitted by markg8 on Sun, 08/10/2008 - 14:15.

...apparently have it wrong. It's not racist. From what I've heard "The One " ad is chock full of imagery and langauge from the "Left Behind" series. Never read the books myself, so somebody else will have to confrim that. But my understanding is It's meant to appeal to the religious right literally making them fear Obama as the Anti-Christ. Apparently these folks aren't excited about staffing phonebanks and knocking on doors for McCain the way they were for Bush in 2000 and 2004 and the idea is this will help put backbone in the ground game that's woefully understaffed at this point.

I don't see how this is gonna work. If you're talking about people who believe in Armegeddon and look forward to the End Times coming so they can be enraptured into heaven it would seem the ascension of the AC is a prequisite. If the ads convince them BHO is evil incarnate they probably won't vote for him but they won't work against biblical predictions playing out as they'd like either.

 

 

 

Actually, "The One". . .

Submitted by Walt Gilbert on Sun, 08/10/2008 - 15:05.

. . .is chock full of the kind of satire that runs across the fiber of left-liberal kooks and causes them to overreach by positing utterly ludicrous conspiracy theories.  Same with the "Celeb" ad.  The ad itself wasn't intended to do anything other than prick the thin skin of the Obama campaign and its fervent followers.  The only thing that will drive those "Left Behind" folks to man the phonebanks is the fatuous assertions of the Obamanites that they actually fall for that sort of idiocy.

We're not dealing with Kerry or Gore here...

Submitted by markg8 on Sun, 08/10/2008 - 16:09.

...is all I can add to that. if you think we're gonna win with ads that even piss off maxed out McCain donors like Paris Hilton's mother while doing little more than making Paris herself a bigger celeb for mocking McCain in her video well what can I say?

Lahaye and Jenkins sold 63 million copies of those Left Behind books and they were so indunated with calls about "The One" ad they felt the necessity to comment on it in this press release:

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/371367426.html

We're not going to beat Obama by turning McCain into McNasty and we're not gonna do it without a ground game either. 

 

 

You're certainly not going to win it. . .

Submitted by Walt Gilbert on Sun, 08/10/2008 - 17:15.

. . .by buying into the complete idiocy that they were "inundated by calls" based on the fact that "Political commentators are comparing McCain's portrayal of competitor Barack Obama with the blockbuster apocalyptic series' depiction of the antichrist."

I suppose some might think that frosting the butt of Kathy Hilton is a one-way ticket to electoral irrelevance, but I suspect that number is limited to Kathy Hilton, you, and a few stooges who would like to make it so for the benefit of the Obama campaign.

Paris a bigger star as a result of all this?  Come back in a month and try to make that case.

One of McCain's big strengths...

Submitted by markg8 on Sun, 08/10/2008 - 19:45.

...is that those same pundits and reporters are willing to cut him all kinds of slack because he's such a nice guy and quotable candidate in person. Now they're making excuses for him saying he's out of touch with his own campaign's message. It doesn't help that after days of the ridiculous meme that Obama's energy plan only consists of keeping your tires inflated McCain said "And could I mention that Senator Obama a couple of days ago said that we ought to all inflate our tires, and I don’t disagree with that. The American Automobile Association strongly recommends it, but I also don't think that that's a way to become energy independent." Nobody even heard the last part. It killed any cedibility the tire gauge message had. You can't step on your own campaign message like that and you can't contradict your own spokesmen if you expect to be taken seriously. Until he and hia campaign get on the same page they should have let Obama to hog the spotlight until they were ready to counter with a cohesive msg.  

 

 

I've got news for ya. . .

Submitted by Walt Gilbert on Sun, 08/10/2008 - 20:28.

. . .the tire gauge "message" will work out much more to McCain's advantage than Obama's answer to it -- the "windfall profits tax" and $1000 rebate check, which has already disappeared from the ads I've seen locally.  McCain's energy plan has stayed the same.  Obama's has gone from saying that keeping your tires aired up will save more oil than we can get from drilling offshore (ridiculous), to slapping "big oil" with a windfall profits tax and redistributing the wealth (ridiculous), to Exxon-McCain (Obama, it turns out, got more money from Exxon), to not necessarily being all that opposed to drilling offshore.

For all these supposedly horrible gaffes being committed by a campaign without a consistent message, you'd think Obama would have built a considerable lead.  He probably would have if his campaign hadn't been the reincarnation of the Kerry campaign.