Cue commercial. Lebron James chilling out with Yao Ming and drinking Coca-Cola with some panda bears. Michael Phelps hawking Visa and AT&T Wireless. And then ... a political attack ad?
McCain's $6 million Olympic ad buy is getting lots of ratings points here in Chicago. I've also heard from a reader that it's been in widespread circulation in Utah. If the ads are running in Utah and running in Chicago, that means they're running everywhere, and so far the buy has been exclusively limited to the negative ad that I linked above.
This is certainly an unorthodox decision. I'd also venture that it's a stupid one. Not just because the ads seem tone-deaf in context, but also because they sacrifice a major opportunity for McCain to do some branding for himself. McCain's whole America First theme could have worked extremely well in the context of the Olympics. Work in pitches from McCain-friendly athletes like Lance Armstrong and Curt Schilling, and there are a million directions you could go with this -- almost any of which would be better than the one he chose.
The McCain folks seem to be convinced that the 'Celebrity'-themed attack ads are working for them. Even if that were true, that's not necessarily a reason to run them during the Olympics. But there's not much evidence that they're working in the first place. If you look at our tracking graph, you'll see a slight downtick in Obama's numbers that occurred between roughly mid-June and mid-July ... before his trip abroad and before McCain's attack ads started running. Since then, the trend has been essentially flat.
There's a lot of noise in polling data -- and there has been especially much noise lately. A campaign that's cherry-picking the polls can tell itself almost any story that it wants to. But if it's making decisions like this one, it is doing so at its own peril.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The Grinch Who Stole The Olympics
-- Nate Silver at 12:46 PM
Labels: advertising, mccain
115 comments
Do we know what ad(s) Obama is airing for the olympics yet?
href="http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/08/obamas_olympic_ad_on_energy.php" Here is one of Obama's, not sure if it's the only one. Pretty good, I think.
Obama airing this ad http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hands_ad/
Agreed. At a feel good time, when even Bush is getting positive press by being a good cheerleader, I think this is the wrong time for McCain to be making attack ads.
Mark,
The only Obama ad I've seen here in Chicago is this one on alt.energy.
It's sort of a weird ad because it doesn't really seem like a political commercial until the end ... although I guess maybe that's the point.
Yes, here is the link. It's definitely positive and forward thinking, not hounding on the negatives like McGrumpy's add. I think he needs his nappy changed.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/
link/bcpid1185304443/bctid1717903009
The link won't fit on one line so I had to split it on two like above.
The best ad I've seen in 2 elections is one the McCAIN camp put out this past week entitled: Democrats Praising McCAIN.
I am a McCain guy as you guys know, but I think a lot of his ad's suck, including that one above that goes from attacking Obama to praising McCain's energy plan... Doesn't make much since. Some other ones are pretty dumb too, including the celebrity one, which seems to be working well from what I hear.
McCain needs this ad on the tv pronto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSpcxkKlEFA&feature=related
This shows he is a bipartisan politician that will work to get things done across party aisles. Fabulous ad for the McCain camp, even better if I see it during the Olympics!
The timing last night of the celebrity add was TERRIBLE. It was the last commercial before Phelps accepted his gold medal. You would think the McCain campaign would be at least a little embarrassed by that...
Totally agree
Also, it was Obama's decision to go national first. McCain followed. It was a dumb decision for both of them. Spreading the map is good but you have to be realistic.
Part of the reason why spreading the map to deep red states was a smart move was that Montana and North Dakota are dirt cheap.
The four biggest and most expensive metro areas in this country are all in deep blue (NY, LA, Chicago) or deep red (Dallas) areas.
Obama was stupid to lead. McCain was even worse in following.
Side note:
It appears that they are both using the exact same stock footage of windmills. Kinda reminds me of the first Bush/Gore debate when they showed up wearing the exact same suit/tie combinations.
Not sure it means anything but its really funny.
At least Obama and McCain can find some common ground, have a look at the stock footage of windmills in both ads. Even stranger, it falls at or near 0:20 in both ads.
There is obviously only one explanation: CONSPIRACY!!!
I saw a T. Boone Pickens energy plan ad this morning using the exact same windmill footage as well.
If McCain doesn't get Obama's negatives up, and particularly press the point that it takes more than charisma to be President, McCain's going to lose.
Americans have had enough of Republicans and they are only going to go with one again if for some reason they can't go with Obama.
I'll say that Obama's Olympics ad is much better, it reminds me of the ads Carville and Begala did for Clinton on the economy in 1992. I wonder if hes getting advice from them now.
MvRed Democrats Praising McCain ad will backfire with the base. It was stupid. Low information Conservatives have enough problems with McCain. Now they might get confused and think hes become a liberal Democrat.
The DNC also parodied the McCain praise ad .
Republican voters are tired of their leadership walking on eggshells to please the left. So any kind of attack ad is a very good thing that will rally the GOP base.
I myself hate the reference that Obama is "Not Ready to Lead".
It's kind of saying that some day he would be. It's just wrong on so many levels.
I have mixed feelings on the Dem ad.
VACon is right. It will backfire with the base. At a certain point though, McCain is going to have to say "fuck the base, they are with me or they aren't". If we get to November and Obama has spent the entire time courting the center and McCain has spent the entire time securing his base, we're in landslide territory.
McCain needs to appeal to the center. I actually think the Dem ad is a reasonably good way to do that. The problem though is that I always believe that if a voter gets influenced by an ad, its only after hearing the ad and the rebuttal. The rebuttal is that all of those Democrats said those things a long time ago (except Hillary, but in the heat of the primary people always say things they don't mean see:Romney, Mitt). Part of the Obama storyline is "McCain was a maverick. He's not anymore".
Altogether, McCain has a real problem. He needs to appeal to centrists and his base. Every time he does anything that appeals to one, he risks seriously alienating the other.
This will energize the GOP hate machine, but most folks are sick of the GOP hate machine and they McCain's negatives will go up even further. Maybe they are trying to define Obama before he does and think it is their only hope, it may be but it seems a risky decision particularly after McCain swore he would stay positive.
On another note, the commercial really sucks, it seems it could have been written by any poster on this site...
"The best ad I've seen in 2 elections is one the McCAIN camp put out this past week entitled: Democrats Praising McCAIN."
I think that this IS a good ad - it enhances his valuable 'centrist' media credentials.
However, the Obama reply is even better - McCain was a moderate, but he changed.