1. John McCain is the Republican least associated with the Bush brand of politics. His appeal is based on his independence, and particularly on his independence from partisan bickering. Eroding his brand could be really dangerous. The political cognoscenti thinks these new Marquess of Schmidtberry rules may work to McCain's benefit in the short term. Longterm: tba.
2. Celebrity? How many movies and TV shows has McCain appeared in? How many SNLs has he hosted? Wasn't a movie made about his life? Wasn't McCain the original politician celebrity? Celebrity?
3. A prominent Republican strategist writes in:
Has anybody asked the McCain campaign if they considered Michael Deaver's golden rule of image management -- that the visual images count so much more than the voiceovers? Deaver famously thanked a network news correspondent (Leslie Stahl, I think) for a hit piece on Reagan, telling her to watch it with the sound off -- which showed a bunch of flattering presidential images with flag-waving supporters.The McCain ad seems to violate that idea -- the images of Obama smiling and being cheered on by hundreds of thousands of American-flag-waving Europeans are downright inspiring, no matter which side you're on. Hell, I can't stand Obama at this point and I find those images uplifting. Yet McCain uses them in his own ad. Has
anybody asked them about the wisdom of that?
Another way of saying this is: will voters associate Barack Obama with Britney Spears? Or will they just see the pictures. Or will they have a meta-reaction along the lines of: "What the heck?"
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