In the wake of Barack Obama’s largely successful world tour, a new meme has wafted into the campaign, pushed hard by John McCain’s people and validated by some members of the media who have clearly had it up to here with what they see as the Obama campaign’s arrogant insularity.

In full mocking mode, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis got the ball rolling Tuesday with this crack: “Barack Obama has more fans across the world than Paris Hilton does.”

Team McCain followed up Wednesday that features not only Hilton but Britney Spears and Obama’s mega-speech in Berlin. “He’s the biggest celebrity in the world,” says the announcer of Obama. “But is he ready to lead?”

The ad’s running in 11 battleground states, among them Wisconsin and Iowa.

If that’s not unsubtle enough, McCain campaign honcho followed up on a conference call:”Do the American people want to elect the world’s biggest celebrity or do they want to elect an American hero?” And Davis followed up with an e-mail:

Only a celebrity of Barack Obama’s magnitude could attract 200,000 fans in Berlin who gathered for the mere opportunity to be in his presence. These are not supporters or even voters, but fans fawning over The One. Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand “MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew — Black Forest Berry Honest Tea” and worry about the price of arugula.

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor tried to laugh it off shortly after the ad was released:

On a day when major news organizations across the country are taking
Senator McCain to task for a steady stream of false, negative attacks,
his campaign has launched yet another. Or, as some might say, ‘Oops! He
did it again.’

When reporters caught up with Obama at a campaign stop in Missouri, he essentially blew off the ad: “You know, I don’t pay attention to John McCain’s ads, although I do notice he doesn’t seem to have anything to say very positive about himself. He seems to only be talking about me… You need to ask John McCain what he’s for and not just what he’s against.”

The GOP got even more exercised by a report in the Washington Post that fed perfectly into the Obama-is-elitist frame. The lede: “Barack Obama has long been his party’s presumptive nominee. Now he’s becoming its presumptuous nominee.”

It went on to describe his meeting with Capitol Hill Dems in which he purportedly said, “This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for,” adding: “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.”

One problem, though. Democrats attending the closed-door meeting said that wildly mangled the real quote: “It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign — that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America. I have just become a symbol.”

Democrats didn’t have much luck with the pushback, snarking about McCain’s multimillion-dollar lifestyle, pointing out at one point that he routinely wears $520 black leather Ferragamo shoes on the campaign trail.

Update: The Obama hit back with an ad of their own, called “Low Road:”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Democrats, John McCain, Main, Presidential, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.