McCain camp makes first interesting move of campaign, uses reverse ageism to its advantage

Have you seen the new McCain ad yet? Sure you have. Its gonna be on everywhere for a week because its the craftiest piece of politicking so far this campaign season. I daresay this ad marks the beginning of the real fall campaign; the gloves are off and its only gonna get more fun from here on. I won't deny it, I was salivating when I saw this video. It pulled me out of my recent spell of ennui and depressing, couch impressing wait for the fall semester to start. Nothing that has happened on the campaign trail since 'tha mighty Hillz' cleared out/ swept out, has managed to stir up the least upward movement of my eyebrows. Now, finally, thanks to Karl Rove's Rogues(TM) finding their rightful place in the McCain's campaign's hierarchy, I have something to talk about.

You see what the Old Dawg McCain is trying to pull here - its beautiful political sleight of hand. I call it reverse ageism. He attacks Obama by linking him to the most dissipated of the young elite illiterati, Brit and Paris, on the basis of his age and his popularity alone; never mind Obama's extensive accomplishments or qualifications . They invoke non existent connections between Obama's youthful star power and the incompetence and frivolousness that those two pop stars epitomise. What they are trying to do is put the fear of the young in the voter, the fear of a generational take over, led by a charismatic leader who(according to the GOP) may be adept only at mass media manipulation and attention gathering. Never mind that a whole generation lies between Obama's early 40s spunk and Brit and co's late 20s seediness.

Also by making the mass/pop media connections between Obama and the slut twins, they criticize Obama in a racist manner without it looking that way. These guys have obviously learnt from Hillary's mistakes on the trail. They dismiss Obama's qualifications on the basis of his age and surface similarities between his popularity and that of the pop tarts and neatly deflect criticism just outside the racism penalty box. But isn't it obvious to a viewer watching the ad that their comparison of a Harvard law review president to a pair of singing and posing vaginas is inherently racist.

Its interesting to observe the McCain camp try to turn their inability to draw crowds or generate enthusiasm into a virtue and characterise Obama's talent at those very things as a cardinal sin. It would be funny if it wasn't slightly effective. This ad has definitely put the Dems on the defensive for now. It didn't help that the world tour did not bring about the ten point bump that they had hoped for.