Washington is a blue state, so we don’t get anywhere near the number of presidential campaign ads as those who live in the tightly contested states like Missouri, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. We do, however, have a tightly contested gubernatorial race, and Biden did visit our state on Sunday to campaign for Obama and our incumbent Democratic governor, Christine Gregoire.
During the week leading up to this rally, Obama started running what I think is his best campaign ad that I’ve seen so far. It’s referred to as the “90% Ad” and it’s directed at McCain’s overwhelming support of Bush’s failed polices.
The Obama campaign’s equating of McCain with Bush, a very unpopular president and perhaps the worst president ever, is nothing new. What makes the ad really great is how it took McCain’s best line from the last debate and turned it against him. You all remember it: “Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”
McCain had to say that because the Obama campaign has successfully portrayed a McCain presidency as four more years of Bush, and nobody wants that. The successful framing of an issue by a Democratic candidate is something we have not seen in a very long time, and as Roger D. Hodge put it in his November ”Notebook” entry for Harper’s Magazine:
Public opinion, the will of the people, is therefore not the cause but a byproduct of political struggle. It is largely the political fighters (…) who frame and determine the subject matter and scope of political debate, the pressing matters of national interest – the menace of homosexual marriage or the grave and rising threat of Saddam Hussein – which the people dutifully discuss in their homes and offices, on the athletic field and at the bar after work. Whichever party to the political struggle best controls the terms of discussion thereby defines the boundaries of public opinion and generally ends up running the country.
This ad takes John McCain’s own words, turns them around and uses them against him. The ad is so excellent and so effective, one has to wonder if the Obama campaign has hired former Republican advertisement producers to create their new TV ads.
Watch and Learn.
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