I remember where I was when it happened. I was in my living room with a glass of iced tea and a bowl of potato chips when I thought my ribs would burst with laughter. I had the TV on and was going to get some ice chips during the commercial break, when John McCain ran an ad comparing Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. I had to remind myself to breathe!
I don’t think I was alone in this reaction. An op-ed in The New York Times the following day was entitled, “Is John McCain Losing It?” In case you’re wondering, the answer to that question is unequivocally yes, and here’s why. The advertisement opened with hundreds of thousands of screaming Germans chanting “Obama, Obama, Obama!” I, for one, kind of found it refreshing to see an American political leader traveling abroad and not having effigies of him burned. The other aspect of McCain’s “negative” attack that left me slightly dazed was the fact that McCain incorporated footage from Obama’s Germany trip at all. Usually a “negative” ad does not include one’s opponent receiving such a positive reception; you know, the whole cheering crowds thing. But still, that wasn’t what amazed me.
The supposed point of the ad was basically to suggest that Obama is “a flash in the pan,” or, “all style and no substance.” In other words, just someone with a thin resume who says the political equivalent of, “That’s hot.” Yet, what exactly is a celebrity? A rather well-known individual with a substantial bank account, adoring admirers and a team of handlers who help craft a persona that shows that this person alien to common problems still has the common touch. A persona that says, “I’m one of you,” even if haircuts and mansions contend otherwise.
Any person, of either party, who runs for elected office fits the above description, whether it’s George W. Bush, who conveniently clips the “g” off the end of words to sound more folksy even as he, well, (fill in the blank), or Hillary Clinton, who can have either a Brooklyn accent as she runs for her Senate seat, or a Midwestern twang in her voice as she seeks her party’s nomination. No one can really believe the son/grandson of admirals and husband of a wealthy beer heiress’s espoused populism is any more genuine than Mitt Romney’s hair or Mark Foley’s sense of family. The fallacy of McCain’s celebrity ad can be measured by the rather finite differences between the cult of celebrity and lawmaker. The only true difference between movie stars and politicians, who star in their own soap operas (see Clintons or Bushes), is that you pay money to see a celebrity get screwed in the movie theater. With a politician, you pay money for them to screw you in real life.