As I said in the other thread, I think that this ad is VERY good. It ties McCain directly to the negative Ayers ad and tethers him to sleazy, Karl Rovian, swift boat politics. Then punches it him around a bit on Iraq and the economy. MORE LIKE THAT, PLEASE, OBAMA CAMP.

Seriously. More ads like that.

kthxbai.

Anybody else have trouble with the sound dropping out about 3/4-way into the ad?

That's his whole campaign though, isn't it? Talking about the sixties, or specifically, talking about when McCain was a POW. Apparently we're supposed to judge the candidates not on who they are and what they'd do now; but rather on who they are and what they were doing in 1970 when McCain was a prisoner in Vietnam and Obama was a 26-year-old white man in the militant socialist movement.

I don't know if you guys have noticed how consistent Obama's ads are in terms of putting the key points in the voiceover narration into the graphics of the ad itself. This means that if you mute the volume you always get the message of the ad. Very good hard hitting stuff. I hope they start running this in the other states where the Ayers as is running.

And Obama's response ad is another sign of the Obama camp's determination to signal that he won't be Swift-Boated

Yes, well, what they actually need to do is hire the sleaziest most corrupt Republican consultant and pay that person to dream up the most offensive and awful Obama ads possible. That way, they'd be prepared to respond immediately, rather than letting the crap waft out there for weeks (Britney) or even says (the current Ayers ad).

Why Democratic campaigns consistently underestimate how low Republicans will go continues to be a mystery to me.

The strength of this ad is that if McCain wants to go after the ad connecting him to the smear ad, he is put into the corner about denoucing it or looking like he condones this kind of smear campaign, which undermines the persona he is trying to maintain.

Bush was always just able to remain silent about the Swiftboat ads with no negative damage.

This is a good response ad for the Obama team.

1. It links McCain to the ad.

2. It says that McCain is OLD because he is stuck in the 60's.

3. It states that Obama condemns Ayer's actions.

4. It makes it clear that what Ayers did was when Obama was only 8 years old and shows a cute pic of Obama then.

5. It says that McCain is busy attacking Obama instead of addressing the problems that Americans face TODAY.

6. It attacks McCain on the economy including foreclosures, losing American jobs, and staying in Iraq.

As long as the Obama camp keeps itself in the position of responding to ads instead of attacking, they will remain behind the eight ball in this race.

I would like to see an ad of POW vets expressing their disgust at how McCain shamelessly uses his POW status as a shield against questions and an excuse for everything else.

Is it me, or does it seem damn short? Will people even notice it flitting across their screens?

And when will Obama repudiate Ayers?

Ob needs to make "Swiftboat" synonymous with "desperate asswipe".

A little more difficult to do is try and persuade people that they are being duped by this crap.

They think you're STUPID! They're not on your side! They don't even like you. They just want your STUPID VOTE!

Great ad.

Now. Match the Swift Boaters' ad buy, dollar for dollar, state by state.

In a perfect world, the McCain ad would run, followed directly by Obama's response. In some smaller markets, it's very possible that they would end up running right next to one another.

If Team O is serious about refuting this ad, they better spend the dough.

I agree billyS..thisis an excellent ad. Hard hitting and direct.

Is it me, or does it seem damn short? Will people even notice it flitting across their screens?

And when will Obama repudiate Ayers?

I really didn't find the ad that hard hitting or effective.

The Obama camp should not let their candidate be put in the position of having to repudiate anybody. That is an embarrassing, no-win situation.

If it's still true this is a 527 Ad, and from an organization with only ONE donor (a Texas billionaire), with personal financial stake in a McCain win. that should be stated all by itself in an Ad. People need to know just who is spending all that money to try and influence their vote.

We need to get as nasty and vicious as it takes, only we will be coming forth with the truth, unlike mccain.

With out reading this thread, let me guess: There are at least 30 post saying that this ad is "good, but not good enough."

Am I right?

Why the swift boating ads won't work...again.

Never underestimate the stupidity of the American people.

Mayor Daley, of all people, appointed William Ayers Chairman of an educational commission to which Barak Obama belonged. Evidently, Mayor Daley did not know about William Ayer's involvement in the Weather Underground. How many of us, older than eight in 1968, either knew about or remembered anything about a person named Ayers who was an advocate of political violence during his life before becoming a Professor of Education.

It's a good ad. The 95% number should be included as text every time the "same" argument is made.

I also feel like there's a parallel somewhere in here between ayers's active period and McCain's POW period both being 35-40 years ago. Living in the past, not change for the future....

Would love to see ads highlighting McCain now taking advice/direction/support from Karl Rove, who -- two cycles ago -- proclaimed the lovely senator as brain-damaged from his time as a POW and as fathering an illegitimate black baby.

Wisdom? Judgment?

Go, Obama!

Hey everyone, remember back during the primaries when I was saying "the GOP doesn't know how to run a campaign without making it about the 60s, and the media doesn't know how to cover a campaign that's not about the 60s"?

Told you so.

Now imagine how much worse it would be if Clinton was the nominee. Because then the campaign would be all about the 60s, since the Republicans know they can suck the Clintons into that debate (they did it with Bill). Just like every other campaign of the past 35 years.

Damn if I didn't just have an idea for an ad that would be the ultimate kick in the nuts. Don't know how it would go in total, but it would include this idea:

"It's no wonder John McCain would prefer to talk about an unpopular war that happened 40 years ago...because then he doesn't have to talk about the unpopular war going on right now that he wants to continue until at least 2013."

In one fell swoop, it makes talking about "POW! POW!" a negative and hangs Iraq around his neck.

As a not-quite-charter member of the Baby Boomers (1949), I remember the '60s and '70s vividly (I wasn't a druggie). I think we need to be reminded of how it really was back then: the draft, the demonstrations and domestic violence (Kent State Killings), war atrocities (My Lai Massacre) . . . all the stuff McClain holds near and dear.

Do an ad using a slide show of stills depicting the above (LIFE magazine would be a good source) with a voice over asking if you really want to play in Johnnie's back yard again.

What is wrong with America to believe the lies of Obama. Its doesn't matter if it happened in the 60s. Obama would seek out and be friend with the terrorist who took out the twin towers if he could. He likes being friends with radicals. That is who the guy is.

This ad is a total distortion on reality. Obama want to stay in Iraq too. Remember, he said he wanted to pull troops out, then he said he wanted ot keep them in, only he called them support troops, and he had a time table, and then he didn't have a time table.

What is Obama doing about foreclosures, nothing. He is a senator like McCain is, and he's done nothing and has no plan.

What is he doing about losing American jobs. He will loose MORE American jobs when he takes away our competitive advantage by decreasing technology. He wants to destroy the military and the space program. He want to tax us and give it to the World Hunger Fund. What do you thing four years of protectionism will bring us? That's right, lost American jobs.

You might want to be careful about the Keating 5. The other 4 members of that group were all Democrats.

Alan Cranston got into a lot of trouble and had to "retire" over that little episode. John Glenn got into trouble too.

Just a thought.

The "house thing" doesn't work too well either. I think those houses belong to his wife (they have a pre-nup protecting her wealth and business) and McCain's response could be to point out the Rezko connection AGAIN. Also, Jesse Jackson and his son, the congressman have a beer distributorship in Chicago which has made them VERY wealthy. Democratic vulnerabilities need to be kept in mind when doing personal attacks.

There should be enough RECENT stuff on McCain to keep his campaign scrambling. Old stuff (divorce, Canoe U., Viet-Nam is just that; OLD STUFF. There should be plenty in the last eight years to do the job.

So by a SwiftBoat add, you mean one that reveals unflattering truths about a candidate? Such as the original revealed about Kerry.