The McCain Con Job

McCain was in my hometown, Racine, Wisconsin, the other day accusing Barack Obama of dropping the race card; the senator was echoing the words of his campaign manger, who earlier made that comment, and had added one other, “ the card came from the bottom of the deck.” Feeling on a roll, the McCain Campaign then came out with the already infamous ad using Britney Spears and Paris Hilton as fellow travelers in the world of notorious celebrities, cynically attempting to smear the Democratic candidate by guilt by association. In other words, Republican circles, it was business as usual. And then on Friday, August 1, to continue the game of can you top this, they juxtaposed him with, of all people, Charleston Heston, but only in his role as Moses parting the waters of the Red Sea. This is how they mock Obama’s “high-flying rhetoric” and what they suggest is his arrogant pretentiousness and tendency to self-glorify himself as a prophet leading the masses out of the Bush wilderness. I can hardly wait to see what poppycock they come up with next. The McCain campaign say they are only injecting some humor into the race for the White House, and levity never hurt anybody. To me the technique looks more like character assassination, or if that’s too extreme, they want to cut his ego down to size, rip apart his persona as an unconventional candidate, and make him eat humble pie. The aim is to damage his reputation with the American Voter, especially that critical group of white voters past 50 who are still leery about embracing Obama. I also think there is a vein of old fashioned anti-intellectualism in these attack ads, as if Obama’s education and oratorical skills are proof of his ‘elitist’ attitude, which is one of those buzz words in contemporary politics.

Obama better be careful from here on out. Things have gotten down and dirty already and none of McCain’s ads are anything but attack ads—issues be damned, they aren’t what win elections. They just want to talk Obama to tatters, until he is a mere shadow of the rousing candidate who beat Hillary Clinton for the nomination. After all, the technique has worked before and it will again. The Rove Squad will use political jujitsu (and they are experts) to turn the slightest misstep by Obama, like his amusing but unnecessary comment about not looking like presidents on our dollar bills that quickly become material they can employ to malign him. Thus the marvelous reception he received in Europe is reduced to a petty event, just another rock-star publicity stunt. One would think he took Spears and Hilton along for the ride, not Senators Chuck Hagel and Jack Reid. If the voting public falls for this crap then they will get more of the same and the country will continue to sink like the Titanic out of season.

The bottom line is, Obama is up against people who will do whatever is necessary to get their man in the White House who will be another spokesman for Big Oil and the Corporate Giants who are laughing all the way to the bank. They don’t give two hoots for the ordinary American; they just want to keep the gravy train running in their direction. They are very experienced at selling untruths (like why we needed to go to war in Iraq) and smearing their opposition (like the Swift Boat debacle with John Kerry) while singing the praises of “Country First,” using a false front to disguise their greed and lust for power.