If there’s one common thread tying all of John McCain’s campaign videos together, it’s that they tend to be a little odd.
About a month ago, the campaign’s first general-election video made an odd connection between McCain and Churchill, while interspersing images from the Hubble telescope. As Sam Boyd put it, the video “gives you an idea of what it’d be like to be Norman Podhoretz on shrooms.
The campaign’s second video touts McCain as the “son and grandson of admirals,” somehow making the awkward connection between his family heritage and his presidential campaign.
The third is about his high school English teacher.
My reaction was similar to that of Yglesias: “Everything about this John McCain ad is bizarre, from the headless, anonymous rock star to the wisps of smoke to the fact that it goes out of its way to mention that McCain’s middle name is ‘Sidney’ to the fact that the core of the ad is an anecdote about how McCain learned the importance of ratting out your friends at a tony boarding school.”
Yeah, I don’t get it, either.
Ross Douthat added a good take, as well:
[I]t makes it seem like John McCain is running to be the headmaster of the school in Dead Poets Society, and while anything that sticks it to Robin Williams’ annoying and irresponsible Emerson-wannabe of an English teacher is catnip to me, I’m not sure that running as the guy who’ll clean up the local prep school is the best way for a seventysomething politician with a reputation for being, well, a little crabby to make his case for the American Presidency.
Watching these videos, I’m reminded that most of the knocks against Barack Obama seem to apply far better to McCain. The complete absence of substance, dubious feel-good rhetoric, appeals based more on emotion than issues — McCain’s campaign keeps creating slick videos that don’t seem to actually say anything.
It reminds me of movies that include stirring music to create emotional responses that should otherwise come from the plot.
Update: And another thing. If two of McCain’s principal problems are that he’s too old and lacks a vision for the future, ads like these only make things worse. Far be it for me to offer McCain advice, but wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to show McCain as being active and energetic? Obama, if he’s the Democratic nominee, wants to make the campaign about the past vs. the future. Oddly enough, McCain seems to want to do the same thing.