Politics stuff

In case you couldn’t tell, John McCain made this address during the Democratic National Convention.   In recent weeks, both Barack Obama and John McCain are increasingly combative, which seems to run counter to the images they’ve cultivated.  Obama has positioned himself as a new kind of politician, not yet corrupted by the system, while McCain has cultivated his status as a “maverick,” a politician who plays by his own rules.  The negative ads, however effective they are shown to be, work against both images; negative ads are seen as politics as usual by the public.

All of this makes this campaign ad very clever.  First of all, it looks very little like any other campaign ad I’ve ever seen.  Most campaign ads show their candidates brightly and feature a montage of people.  If the candidates are shown speaking, they are speaking to people who smile and nod.  This negates both of those ideas.  There are only a few cuts, McCain is shown in subdued, intimate lighting, and he speaks directly to the camera.  The fact that it looks and feels different is a strength; it lets people know, visually, that this isn’t an ordinary campaign ad.

In substance, the ad seems to be designed to make the viewer the think that it isn’t an ad at all – that John McCain is simply congratulating Barack Obama on his nomination.   It’s a silly thought, of course; were McCain simply congratulating his opponent, he could have made a phone call to the Obama campaign instead of spending the money to make the ad and air it.  To do this now deflects some criticism of the negative campaigning.  When asked about it, a McCain supporter can deny that the campaign even did go negative, asking when the last time a candidate gave his opponent a televised congratulations during the opponent’s convention was.

~ by sthanley on September 1, 2008.