Presidential Election — McCain Like Bush
sjbooher: In the final presidential debate, after Obama pretty much blamed the country’s current position on the failure of the Bush administration, McCain struck back, saying something like “I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against him, you should have run 4 years ago.” It was one of the few times in the debates that McCain seemed to win with a slick comment. This ad comes on the heels of that, strikes right back, and makes McCain look foolish. This is probably classified as a “negative” ad, but it’s the kind of “negative” ad that I think is ok. It’s not a character attack or mud-slinging. It focuses on policy tendencies of the candidate. This is well done, especially given the less than 24-hour turnaround. After seeing those clips of McCain making those ridiculous faces, it is hard to think of him as “presidential”. A.
jtherkal: I have mixed feelings about that whole situation. The question about negative ads in the debate made me feel very uncomfortable. It’s been fairly clear to me that Obama’s “negative” ads have been critical of McCain’s policies, not about his personality. This seems to stray a little from that, and seems like a reaction to Obama’s failure to lambaste McCain when he made that “clever” comment about not being Bush. Many viewed that moment as a victory for McCain, like he really told Obama. So while the ad is okay, it’s a reaction to Obama missing an opportunity to throw those same points in McCain’s face when he was trying to be snarky. Telling me about McCain’s tendencies doesn’t tell me about Obama’s plans, or about the faults in McCain’s actual plans. B-.
Tags: barack obama, john mccain, politics, president