Newsweek admits McCain's attack ads contain lies, but calls his strategy "SAVVY" anyway...

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Posted Wednesday, July 30, 2008 11:24 AM
McCain's Savvy Ad Strategy
Andrew Romano



Breaking news, MSM: John McCain's presidential campaign isn't run by a bunch of morons.

Reading the political press over the past week--in which reporters have happily cataloged McCain's streak of seemingly avoidable public relations mishaps--it'd be easy to believe otherwise. The cheese-aisle press conference in Bethlehem, Penn. The bratwurst lunch alongside a used-car salesman in Columbus, Ohio. The canceled trip to a Gulf Coast oil rig. And, lest we forget, the golf-cart photo-op with 84-year-old former President George Bush in the resort town of Kennebunkport, Me. Not exactly the best way to counterprogram the images of a "young," "vigorous" Barack Obama swanning around the globe with foreign dignitaries, seducing 200,000 starstruck Europeans in Berlin and sinking three-pointers while playing pickup basketball with U.S. soldiers. "July has been a cruel month for McCain," wrote the Washington Post's venerable David Broder. "The worst week of his campaign," added Clive Crook of the Financial Times.
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But Team McCain--now led by savvy Bush-Cheney veteran Steve Schmidt--may be a lot less idiotic than the chattering classes suspect. It's not just that the average polling gap between the Arizona senator and his rival from Illinois has narrowed to 2.6 percent in the wake of the latter's overseas adventure, or that 65 percent of voters say the trip left them with either a bad taste in their mouths or no opinion at all. (We predicted last week that Obama's jaunt would have little net impact.) It's that while Obama was abroad the campaign actually launched an crafty two-front ad strategy carefully calibrated to inflict maximum damage on the Dem with minimal backlash. The press may have been too focused on McCain's easily-mockable blunders to get the message. But we're willing to bet that swing voters weren't.

Here's how the strategy worked. Last week, the McCain camp released two ads. The first, "Pump," implicitly linked Obama's opposition to off-shore oil drilling--a stance that two-thirds of the country opposes--to skyrocketing gas prices. The second spot, "Troops," suggested that Obama canceled his visit to a German military hospital because "the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras." Both claims were demonstrably false. I've already called McCain's "Troops" accusation "baseless." FactCheck.org says "Pump" is "absurd."

Sadly, however, a political ad doesn't have to be accurate to be effective. Just ask John Kerry.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/07/30/mccain-s-savvy-ad-strategy.aspx