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| Home Front: Politix |
| Why Obama can't Google |
| 2008-09-17 |
| Jonah Goldberg . . . To prove his newfound determination, bare-knuckle Obama unveiled a new TV ad, to air in key states. It begins with the date “1982,” a picture of a disco ball and footage of McCain in clunky glasses from his first year in Washington. “Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn’t,” says the announcer. “He admits he still doesn’t know how to use a computer, can’t send an e-mail, still doesn’t understand the economy and favors $200 billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class.” All the while it shows ancient computers and a cordless phone that looks like a walkie-talkie from “Ice Station Zebra.” The tax-cuts and economy barbs are familiar boilerplate. What’s new is the charge of computer illiteracy and the blatant attempt to attack McCain as too old for the job — and that speaks volumes. First, the ad is dishonest. McCain has been one of the Senate’s leading authorities on telecom and the Internet. . . . One reason McCain is not versed in the mechanical details of sending e-mail and typing on a keyboard is that the North Vietnamese broke his fingers and shattered both of his arms. As Forbes, Slate, and the Boston Globe reported in 2000, McCain’s injuries make using a keyboard painfully laborious. He mostly relies on his wife and staff to show him e-mails and Web sites, though he says he’s getting up to speed. “It’s extraordinary,” Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said, “that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn’t know how to send an e-mail.” For the record, President Clinton sent exactly two e-mails while in office. Besides, by this logic, Obama is even less qualified to be commander-in-chief because, unlike McCain, Obama has never fired a gun, flown a plane, or led men during wartime. And if the Obama campaign didn’t intend to mock a disabled veteran, (the jury's still out on that one) what does it say about his supposedly “cybersavvy” staffers that they don’t know how to conduct a five-minute Google search? But the most revealing aspect of the ad is its target audience: Obama has a 20- to 30-point advantage over McCain among 18- to 29-year-olds. Indeed, his base (not counting black voters) is upscale college kids and new-economy young voters. They may think being able to send an e-mail is, like, totally crucial. The only other constituency — other than the press — that will be jazzed by such an attack are the Web-symbiotes of the left-wing netroots, another demographic Obama has locked up. But older Americans, working-class Americans, veterans, and other voters Obama desperately needs probably won’t care and might even take offense at Obama’s condescension and insensitivity. There are two explanations for the ad. One is that Obama released it to reassure his base that he’s serious about attacking McCain, not to win over swing voters. That, or the campaign actually thinks it’s an effective ad. Either way, the lesson is the same: Obama doesn’t know how to get outside his echo chamber. He talks about being bipartisan to hard-core liberals who like the words, but he rejects actual deviation from the liberal line. He talks about new ideas while repackaging old ones. He is a candidate who has never had to sell himself to voters who weren’t already sold. And it shows. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #7 LOL |
| Posted by: .5MT 2008-09-17 20:24 |
| #6 Be nice to Senator McCain. He can't send email because he is soooo old he hasn't evolved opposable thumbs yet. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2008-09-17 15:03 |
| #5 18-25 are millenials. I know 2. They aren't Gen Y. My 25 y.o., NYC living, ardently pro-abortion daughter is so turned off that she's starting to lean McCain with no encouragement from her parents who know better than to question her wisdom. Barry's got problems. The 22 y.o. in Chicago is just going to vote for McCain because after 4 years she knows enough. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-09-17 14:12 |
| #4 Generation Y is known among marketers for their insatiable appetite for brand names, logos, and above all marketing BUZZ! It's just because they are young and stupid. Consider that Obama's lefty boomer base is made up of the perpetual adolescents who bought into the "packaged rage" sold to them by the evil corporations. Forty years later they are still too dense to see that the brand they are buying is nothing but pleasant sounding hype; promising all and delivering nothing. |
| Posted by: Betty Grating2215 2008-09-17 13:42 |
| #3 I'm guessing Obama's people are all young and don't realize that not only are they insulting McCain but all of the elderly that find tech a bit off-putting. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2008-09-17 12:16 |
| #2 Does the McCain camp have someone on Obama's team feeding them ad ideas that will backfire on them? Sabatoge is the only explaination I have for Obama to set himself up to get shot down like this. It allows McCain to once again bring up his POW experience and to display his experience in the Senate on internet and telecom issues. Then what? We are reminded that Obama looks like a stupid, spoiled little kid by comparison. Way to go, McCain-plant-in-Obama-staf. Way to go. I wish I could see this ad, but it's not likely to play in Oregon. We're not in play. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2008-09-17 11:10 |
| #1 I'm in a Marketing Management class right now for my MBA. Generation Y is known among marketers for their insatiable appetite for brand names, logos, and above all marketing BUZZ! It is common strategy to over-hype a product if you want to sell it to Gen-Y audiences. Enter Obama....He's a natural for the Gen-Y vote (18-29 year olds). |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-09-17 10:48 |