{"id":16518,"date":"2008-08-08T08:55:18","date_gmt":"2008-08-08T12:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16484.html"},"modified":"2008-08-08T08:55:18","modified_gmt":"2008-08-08T12:55:18","slug":"mccain-touts-dems-praise-but-also-gives-dems-an-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mccain-touts-dems-praise-but-also-gives-dems-an-opening\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain touts Dems’ praise, but also gives Dems an opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks, the McCain campaign has unveiled a series of web videos that are created for the sole purpose of generating news. These videos aren’t “ads,” in any traditional sense, and won’t even be considered for television broadcast. They are, in effect, video press releases with provocative messages, made to generate media attention and a sense of “buzz.”<\/p>\n

And, invariably, it works. The more outrageous the web video, the more the news networks will run it, repeat it, and talk about it. The videos about “The One” and reporters’ alleged affection for Barack Obama were, as planned, everywhere.<\/p>\n

That said, the latest effort, unveiled yesterday, may have been a miscalculation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When John McCain railed against the Bush administration or bucked his party on campaign finance reform, he was his Democratic colleagues’ favorite Republican. <\/p>\n

But their praise is coming back to haunt them. <\/p>\n

On Thursday, McCain’s campaign released a one-minute Web ad seeking to burnish his maverick image — with testimonials from prominent Democrats.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You’ll notice that a few of these Democratic leaders look a few years younger than they do today.<\/p>\n

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My first thought was, “Let this be a lesson to all of us — if you say something nice about a Republican, the Republican will use it against you later.”<\/p>\n

But as it turns out, the DNC’s response was both fast and pitch-perfect.
\n
\nIt’s called, “Maverick No More,” and it features the exact same Democrats who appeared in McCain’s clip.<\/p>\n

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If you can’t watch clips online, Seth Colter Walls has the transcript<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The point’s pretty obvious — excluding the attack Hillary Clinton made during the presidential primaries, Dems used to<\/i> appreciate McCain’s willingness to cooperate and occasional independent streak. Indeed, before his metamorphosis, McCain had probably earned<\/i> some of this praise from his Democratic colleagues.<\/p>\n

But that’s precisely the point: McCain changed. The people who used to respect him don’t anymore. Those who’ve worked with him in the Senate have seen, up close, the transition from independent thinker to Republican hack.<\/p>\n

Indeed, thanks to the McCain campaign’s new web video, we could — if the media has any interest at all — have a debate about the Old McCain vs. the New McCain, exploring the ways in which the previous incarnation would find the revised model offensive.<\/p>\n

As Howard Dean says in the DNC’s response, “You know, the John McCain of 2000 wouldn’t vote for this John McCain.”<\/p>\n

This probably isn’t the kind of response the McCain gang wanted from its video. Good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks, the McCain campaign has unveiled a series of web videos that are created for the sole purpose of generating news. These videos aren’t “ads,” in any traditional sense, and won’t even be considered for television broadcast. They are, in effect, video press releases with provocative messages, made to generate media attention and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}