Same Old Song and Dance

The Obama Campaign released this ad today, titled SAME, which is a straight forward attempt at illustrating a close intimate relationship between McCain and Bush, on a personal and political level.  

This is the least creative spot put out by the Obama campaign so far in the General Election, and I think it is the most effective.  Past spots by the campaign tried poorly executed humor, light hearted songs and insinuation to try to convey the message that McCain is simply an extension of Bush.

This spot cuts to the chase and it is clearly Obama’s strongest line of attack.  I am willing to bet the Obama team planned this spot in timing with the Bush speech, which was supposed to take place at the Republican Convention.

This ad also shows message discipline, compared to the recent attacks on Sarah Palin.  These kinds of undisciplined, personal and overtly malicious attacks, if kept up, will undoubtedly back fire.  

Why? – While, voters have come to accept contrast and negative campaigning as part of the political process, they can much more easily identify personal attacks – and they have limited tolerance for it.

This entry was posted by Brian Donahue on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Attack Ads, Creative. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.