McCain campaign smears have a limited target audience: the media

July 28, 2008

The McCain campaign has been pretty aggressive over the last few days, trying to manufacture a controversy about the Pentagon blocking Barack Obama’s access to wounded U.S. troops in Germany last week. First there was a disgusting TV ad, which was followed by a deceptive piece today in which the McCain campaign exploited a Black Hawk Down hero.

But there’s an interesting twist in all of this — the campaign has a limited target audience.

John McCain’s current message is heavily focused on Obama’s national security credentials, his canceled troop visit in German, and in general on pushing back against the wave of good press and good images that came out of Obama’s trip.

But McCain’s television advertising campaign doesn’t seem to be matching that message.

Both his first foreign policy attack, released at the beginning of Obama’s trip, and the hard-hitting latest spot, appear to be directed almost entirely at the media and insiders.

The new ad has been aired in the Washington, D.C. and Denver, Evan Tracey, who tracks media buys at the Campaign Media Intelligence Group, told Politico.

Tracey told Ben Smith, “They’re probably one part ads and one part press release. I don’t think these are in any part cornerstones to his message these days — I think they’re really designed to get in the press. They’re airing them just enough so they can put their hands on the Bible and say they’re airing them.”

The McCain campaign is spending heavily on ads blaming Obama for high gas prices — a message so stupid, it’s hard to believe this is actually on the air — but the Landstuhl attacks aren’t.

It is, in effect, a test — the McCain gang wants to see just how much mileage they can get out of a smear, without spending any real money at all, relying only on the media.

Greg Sargent puts the pieces together:

…[T]he McCain camp’s goal is largely to get the ad debated in the press and to drive the conversation that way.

Evan Tracey, who tracks media buys at the Campaign Media Intelligence Group, took a look at the McCain buys and discovered that an earlier McCain foreign policy attack ad, as well as the troop visit attack spot launched this weekend, are running in almost no battleground-state markets, with the new spot only running in Denver and Washington, D.C. […]

So, the bogus troop-visit attack ad’s primary goal is to get reporters and pundits to talk about it. The McCain campaign is counting on the media to amplify the message for them.

Maybe that alone could persuade media folks to gear up those fact-checking skills and start calling out the ad as false?

We probably shouldn’t get our hopes up. MSNBC got it right; most outlets didn’t.

This is a tried and true method reminiscent of all Rover run political campaigns! Expect only more of the same BS type of ads aimed at his base: The MSM

  • Maybe the BBQ buddies are getting tired of being used. Even Andrea Mitchell called him a liar.

  • The last thing that corporate media would want to do is fact check a republican nominee. They are conflicted since airing the lies forces the Obama campaign to buy nationwide ads debunking them. It is a win-win situation for them to air lies nationally about the democratic nominee and they leave money on the table if they debunk them. The same mindset held true during the lengthy campaign for the democratic nomination.

  • I live in northeast Ohio and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen McCain’s ad blaming Obama for high gas prices.

    It’s so ridiculous, so lame that I just chuckle every time it comes on … does he really think anyone could be stupid enough to believe that Obama’s to blame for high gas prices? (And if I’m contributing to McCain’s campaign I’d be in quite the snit thinking “they’re spending my money on this nonsense?”)

  • Maybe that alone could persuade media folks to gear up those fact-checking skills and start calling out the ad as false?

    No.

    This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.

    Note, by the way, that the McCain camp does not perceive it as a risk at all that the media will point out that his smears are false. His entire strategy counts on the media pulling their bogus “he said, she said” balancing act and amplifying their message.

  • “The McCain campaign is counting on the media to amplify the message for them.”

    Isn’t this what was agreed to at the barbecue?

    Problem for McCain is that while amplifying the message, the media often displays a recent photo or, even worse, recent video of him.

    McCain’s press team desperately need something or someone (else) to work with.

  • #11, while that is amusing, just wait until there IS a President Obama. All the republicans and GOP shills will be blaming him for all the country’s ills – and completely forget that Bush got us into them.

    Funny how that works.

  • Andrea Mitchell is doing a great service for Obama on MSNBC, and all it takes is just being honest about what she saw in Germany … and Israel … and Iraq.

    She “vouched” for Obama visiting wounded troops in the Green Zone.

    She “testified” that it was never a plan for the press to follow Obama into the hospital in Germany, and that she thought that the Pentagon kind of went overboard in warning the Obama campaign.

    She “explained” that the toughest country was Israel, and he did very well there, really helping himself.

    Maybe the whole point of the trip was to sequester key members of the media for a week?

  • It is, in effect, a test — the McCain gang wants to see just how much mileage they can get out of a smear, without spending any real money at all, relying only on the media.

    I really didn’t think the McCain campaign was this clever. Maybe he’s advertising to his “base,” but it’s not smart to insult the intelligence of those who know better (is it okay to insult the intelligence of those who don’t? Campaign managers want to know!).

  • Please read the answer to John McCain from the former chief of Ramstein Military hospital and the person in charge of care of the wounded troops, it is very interesting, I wish we could get the media to report this, it would shut McCain up in a minute.

  • Actually — this is quite clever — obviously not McCain’s idea. They spend almost no money and use blogs / word of mouth / Limbaugh to spread the word.

    Hell — they probably don’t even have to buy airtime — just go straight to the blogs or put it on the McCain website.

    Unfortunately, the vast majority of people accessing the web are Democrats. Republicans are so 1950s.

  • It is, in effect, a test — the McCain gang wants to see just how much mileage they can get out of a smear, without spending any real money at all, relying only on the media. — CB

    And the test came out positive… The scam worked like a charm, with millions and millions seeing the ad (even newspapers’ online versions had either linked or embedded it). And, of those millions, only a few thousand — who happened to be watching Andrea Mitchell at the right time — were told that the whole thing was a tissue of lies (direct and implied). So, what are the viewers going to take away? What McCain wanted them to — Obama is a callous, care for nothing but self-aggrandizing, SOB.

    And all on pennies to the dollar budget; *very* efficient… If I could be sure that that’s how McCain would manage the *country’s* budget too, I’d be much less worried about him stealing the elections.

  • I am so tired of watching this ad being run on MSNBC all day so they can “discuss” it….they are just finding a way to get it to run all the time. No matter how many pundits say that it is incorrect just the fact that they are running it and constantly discussing it will cause many who mindlessly watch believe it. And Andrea Mitchell is pissing me off royally…..she is saying that Obama’s trip and actions overseas was “too much”. She is too much.

  • The Republicans are at an all time low with their smear campaign. I believe desperation has definitely set in. They must find a different drum to play, because the same old beat is no longer working. And if their goal is to win over voters, they are way off the mark. The country is in a mess because of poor decisions; by electing Obama what can be worst than what we already have. What would really be a tragedy is if a candidate is elected that will continue the same failed policies and the deficit. And at the end of the day we must ask ourselves this question,”Do we want the same failed policies?

  • Doesn’t anyone remember that the Willie Horton ad ran only a few times, but was picked up by the media and amplified thereby? Same tactic here.

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