McCain Negative Ad

[cp]

And so it begins:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/mccain-campaign-puts-up-first-negative-ad/

It's a bit early to go negative but there's nowhere else for McCain to go right now.

There's something a bit off about this ad, though. It hardly qualifies as 'negative', at least when compared with the vicious smear jobs both sides have done before. The music behind Obama is airy and ethereal and doesn't change significantly (enough) when the ad switches to McCain in contrast. The announcer's voice seems out of place. He has a velvety, unauthoritative tone that makes his denunciations of Obama sound almost complimentary. Again, his tone doesn't change substantially when he speaks about McCain. Finally, the tag line at the end is unusual. It's not quite a slogan; those tend to be a complete sentence ("The Change you Deserve") or else something curt and repetitive ("The Few. The Proud. The Marines"). 'Country First' sounds choppy and imprecise.

All in all I doubt this will do much for McCain, though not for the reasons I've mentioned. McCain's been on this 'definition' message (McCain: Patriot/war hero. Obama: liberal/Democrat) for a while now and it's a fundamentally flawed strategy. People already know that story and heard that message but it hasn't helped McCain gain ground. He needs to tackle other issues and start new narratives so he can seize the mantle of discourse; otherwise he'll be playing on Obama's terms right up till election day and that's a strategy for disaster.

[Lunar]

It's a pretty good ad on-face, it doesn't go so negative as to create a backlash against McCain but makes its points.  But its points aren't convincing.  I think it's timed to make Obama seem less statesmanlike while he does his media-intensive trips abroad and to undermine some of his message as he travels.

But I'm not a fan of this ad because it doesn't drive a key point across and comes across as a little snooty with the "country first," as if McCain is trying to say that Obama doesn't value his country that much.  Without a clear message to take home, it won't convince anyone anything except this vague idea that Obama could have done more by staging more [any] subcommittee hearings on a region involved with the region his subcommittee was on, y'know?  I mean, I'm intentionally making it more clustered here but I don't walk away from McCain's ad convinced. 

And Biden has already issued an incredibly effective rebuttal saying as the committee head involved here, he was in charge of NATO & Afghanistan, not Obama, and four hearings have already been had with NATO & Afghanistan and Obama was doing everything right.  I don't necessarily believe Biden, but I think it's still believable.