Update: This video reminds us about the parallels between the media narratives of Ronald Reagan’s and Barack Obama’s Presidential campaigns. And no, this wasn’t put out by the Obama campaign, and though I disagree with some of its implications, I think it’s instructive for us to all take a step back and recognize the ways in which certain themes repeat themselves in the media narratives of elections.
I’ve been blogging elsewhere about the recent McCain ads.
This:
and this:
I wonder how this type of ad plays locally.
The first ad– the one featuring Louisiana’s own Britney Spears alongside Paris Hilton, whose family actually donated to the McCain campaign–attempts to reduce Obama as a generic and vacuous “celebrity,” someone whose fame is either inherited or the result of an ephemeral teenage infatuation.
Ostensibly, the message was about energy policy, but for all intents and purposes, the ad was about framing Obama as an inexperienced, elitist, dilettante “celebrity.”
It’s a big risk. The ad can only work if– throughout the next 90 or so days– McCain can convince enough Americans to believe Obama is inherently unqualified, and that he is, in fact, the only qualified candidate.
This will inevitably raise the question: What does McCain mean by qualified and “ready to lead”? When you’re attempting to raise this question against a candidate like Obama, you’ll run into a wall of information demonstrating his qualifications (which have already been tested and vetted during the primaries).
Regarding the second ad, I agree with David Gergen:
There’s also a big risk in attempting to paint Obama as the “Other” or to cloak him in Otherness.
Certainly, we can all agree that the notions of identity and allegiance and unwarranted “celebrity” (which is, in and of itself a media creation, one in which McCain also benefited from when he returned from Vietnam) have little place in a debate between two qualified, though distinctly different, candidates.
There are much more important and pressing issues– issues that we should collectively feel compelled to debate… which is why when campaigns decide to throw millions of dollars and thousands of hours into broadcasting, supporting, and defending their peripheral attacks, you have to wonder why they’re not waging combat on the actual battlefield.
CenLamar 
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