TWO ADS THAT GO WELL TOGETHER…. It’s apparently become customary for the campaigns to unveil new ads the morning after a debate. The new ones this morning actually go together well.
The Republican campaign unveiled this 60-second spot intended to separate McCain from Bush. “The last eight years haven’t worked very well, have they? I’ll make the next four better,” McCain says in the ad. The substantive content, not surprisingly, is odd — McCain tells the viewer that less government spending will for some reason help “protect your job” and suggests off-shore drilling has something to do with creating a “renewable energy economy.” But putting that aside, the point of McCain’s ad is rather straightforward: he won’t be as bad as Bush.
Given the McCain message, the campaign’s internal polling must show he’s getting slammed on the Bush association. Come to think of it, Obama’s internal polling must show the same thing, because the Obama campaign released a new ad this morning that touched on the exact same theme.
With footage from last night’s debate, the viewer sees McCain say, “Senator Obama, I am not President Bush.” The voice-over says, “True, but you did vote with Bush 90% of the time. Tax breaks for big corporations and the wealthy, but almost nothing for the middle class — same as Bush. Keep spending $10 billion a month in Iraq while our own economy struggles — same as Bush. You may not be George Bush, but…” at which point the spot shows footage of McCain bragging, “I voted with the president over 90% of the time — higher than a lot of my even Republican colleagues.”
If the next phase of the campaign conversation is the extent to which McCain is like Bush, the Obama campaign is going to be very pleased.
