The idea is not to convert Obama supporters or fence sitters, but to give conservatives who don’t much care for McCain a reason to work against Obama.
“Not” Bush Did not work in 2004, let’s hope “not” Obama won’t work in 2008.
I find that ad to be absolutely hilarious. It looks like something from Mr. Show.
[QUOTE=Sampiro]
It’s ads like this that give me hope Obama will win. If that’s the best you can do- go after his popularity and charisma and veiled threats he’s the anti-Christ (which save for the latter is right out of Hillary’s book) then maybe McCain will end like Hillary. I don’t think Hillary or McCain has quite thought out that by attacking Obama’s charisma and eloquence and lack of experience in D.C. they’re just continually re-enforcing that “this guy has INCREDIBLE charisma and eloquence and hasn’t been part of the D.C. machines!”
I really can’t see this gaining one vote for McCain though. Those who’d succomb to its clear religious message will already be refusing to vote for Obama /QUOTE]
You’re very much missing the point of the ad.
The problem isn’t that those who’d succumb to the ads’ religious message (and there are many of them) were going to vote for Obama. The problem is that too many of them were going to vote for nobody at all. Bush got a lot of votes from people who saw him as a “Prayer Warrior,” a good fundamentalist Christian like them, which to many people is the only good kind of person there is. McCain is not that, and so a lot of those voters, the GOP reasons, might not be bothered to vote for him. Much of the McCain campaign story is the lack of enthusiasm with which that base of GOP voters view him.
They’d vote McCain over Obama if they went to the polls, but you have to get them to the polls. When the average citizen is just 50/50 to vote at all, a lot of your campaign strategy has to be aimed at getting a slight uptick in your kind of voters to bother to go. That’s why the Republicans got so many gay marraige initiatives onto the ballot in 2004. Gay-haters were likelier to be Republican than Democrat; it boosted their turnout. I don’t think Karl Rove gives a shit about gay marriage one way or the other, but he knew how to energize the right voters.
Subtly hinting that Obama’s working against God is a way to get those votes out.
Subtle, okay. But what about this particular ad? 
Exactly. This ad is on McCain’s website (a place conservative people who aren’t happy with McCain would be unlikely to go). But online, it’s “safe”, so to speak. It won’t get much play in the media and the “bad ideaness” of it all will disappear in a few days.
But if he puts it on TV to try to reach a bigger audience, it will backfire on him. You can’t put something this stupid out there and not expect people to react. The talk on the talk shows won’t be “Obama is the AntiChrist” but “Is McCain senile?” And just wait until Leno and Letterman get a hold of this. McCain would be roasted.
I agree with this. What they’re trying to do is turn “popular” and attractive" into negatively-tinged shibboleths with a certain crowd. It sounds insane, but then the Founding Fathers’ heads would have asploded if you ever told them that “academic”, “intellectual”, or “liberal” could have been considered terms of opprobrium in American politics.
Add to that the mocking of conservation through tire pressure, and we have a theme. “Everything good is bad.”
I could do a better job for $0.49 and half a pack of Lucky Strikes.
But in defense of it, it does look like the Fundie/Pentecostal schlock that the Richard Dortch-revering, Thomas Kinkade-collecting, so-far-right-that-they-think-Reagan-was-a-bleeding-heart-liberal hold so near and dear to their hearts, so it’ll win them over. Oh, wait, McCain already had that vote by default.
And to think, I was worried that without Her Royal Clintonness in the race it would be sane and sober, dull as ditch water and dry as a desert. Instead, McCain and Co. seem devoted to the goal of making a collective ass of themselves. You can’t make this stuff up for any price.
Stranger
The goal they are devoted to is not “making a collective ass of themselves”. Their goal is to win.
This stuff helps achieve that goal. Complain to the choir all you like, but it would be more useful to fight it among those for whom it is effective.