Free Advertising, Just Act Indignant (JM)

The most impressive strategy I've seen from the McCain campaign thus far is it's ability to create and spread media without spending any money. The recipe for this has been remarkable simple. Create webads (or low media buy ads) with a little bit of controversy in them. For instance the already famous "Celebrity" ad starring Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. This ad has become so noteworthy that Paris Hilton responded with her own ad, Hilton's mother spoke out (as she is a major McCain donor) and myriad terrible internet parodies were spawned. Out of indignity and attempted mockery came a gazillion dollars worth of free ad time for John McCain.

Now comes this latest web ad:

Already the band is getting ginned up for another round of, "this is racist and disrespectful". Just check out this post on TPM and the comment thread. How much do you want to bet that this hits the mainstream media in the next two days. This is precisely what the McCain campaign wants. I recognize calling any criticism of Obama racist was a pretty effective strategy in the primary, but this is a different situation and entirely different demographic. One which, it is sad to say, is unlikely to be persuaded by such a criticism. But there's a bigger principle at stake here, because in this case the criticisms are simply wrong. Just because this ad mocks Obama love (I mean it shows a girl stating explicitly that she "loves the softness" in Obama's eyes) doesn't mean that this is attempting to play on racism. It is, to sadly quote a legal term, facially neutral, and quite possibly nothing more than an attempt to mock youthful support and irrationality, not try to create a, "Where the white women at?" moment.

Ultimately when it comes to these sorts of ads the best response is simply to ignore them and attack on issues. This isn't swiftboating, it isn't challenging Obama's past or credentials. Simply put, there is no good way to respond to these ads, only a good way to get more people to pay attention. I actually think the campaign itself is doing a pretty good job with this, it's rather Obama's rather passionate internet supporters that drive this story on blogs, which then drives the story in the MSM. So those that are made angry by this ad I would caution outrage and instead suggest that in the long run there is less to be outraged about when fewer people see the "offensive" material.

The Ethics of Voting Hillary (JM)

Is voting an ethical decision? I think it very clearly is. When designating an individual who will have power of the rights of the entire population there is a very real moral onus. Sometimes it's a particularly easy calculus: pick the guy or gal who has the best policies and the best possibility of enacting those policies. Rarely is there tension in this choice, it is usually surprisingly easy to pick out the candidate that, to my mind, stands out above all the rest. In this election it was Joe Biden, ethical, intelligent and experience, pretty much the perfect person to pull us out of this ditch George W. Bush drove us in to. But Iowans, in their infinite wisdom, made the decision for all of us, so no Joe Biden.

The next month was amongst lead to some seriously confused thinking on my part. In terms of issues I was most aligned with Edwards, but there always seemed to be something inherently weird and untrustworthy about him. Obama's popularity and background were quite intriguing to me, but I could not get over his complete lack of experience as well as total mistrust of his "not politics as usual" message. Any time a politician says that I expect people to softly snicker, there was way less snickering this time, but still Obama has proved himself to be a mere mortal politician as I expected. That left me with Hillary. I had deep misgivings about her, I never quite trusted her to be genuine or a clean campaigner, but I did believe that she supported the liberal agenda I believed in and, of the candidates left, was likely to be the most effective president of the remaining candidates, Democrat or Republican.

So since then I have been a supporter and grown more and more ardent in time. I like Hillary, I think she is a good and ultimately misunderstood person. I think a lot of the crap that has come her way has been rooted in misogyny and political gamesmanship. For some reason it has always been acceptable to tear the Clintons down in ways normal humans are never subjected to. In fact, it has its genesis in the crazy "Contract for America" Congresses from the mid-90s. I would remind those Obama supporters who think these kinds of attacks acceptable of the people from whom they are taking their marching orders. Moreover, I think it's very clear that the press is letting Obama's side get away with a lot more cheap shots than Hillary.

All of this said, I am now in something of a quandary. The increasingly racist and negative tone coming out of surrogates in the Clinton campaign (most notably Geraldine Ferraro) is utterly disturbing. The fact that Hillary hasn't strictly pushed away from this line of attack is discomforting to say the least (also inexplicably weird). I have some theories as to why this is the case, but weird, idle, psychological speculation has no place on the internets. Either way, it is simply an unacceptable form of politics. So here is where my problem lies: I am still absolutely convinced that Hillary Clinton would be an order of magnitude better President of the United States than Barack Obama and lightyears better than John McCain. I am also convinced she will be more likely to win in the general election than Obama would. You can feel free to try and persuade me otherwise, but since I doubt I will ever believe that politics is anything less than a contentious sport and that all the movements in the world won't change the fact that we are going to have fight tooth and nail to change the agenda of this country, I think Hillary is by far our best choice. That said, her campaign is devolving more and more in to a thoroughly unethical muck, one I am kind of disgusted by. It is definitely not as bad as some Obama supporters seem to think, I am getting real tired of hearing Hillary called things like "monster", "Stalin", "the president of the Ku Klux Klan"... thought admittedly "Hillzilla" can stay.

So there's my issue, does campaigning ethics trump a good presidency? I just don't know. This is the point at which some people simply drop out of the system, but to me that is the height of ethical irresponsibility. There's a right choice to be made, it's a matter of balancing perspectives and outcomes and it's not an easy choice. I suspect that, in the end, I will still support Hillary (I mean admittedly I no longer have any say in this) because ultimately I think maximizing the person in the presidency is more important than ethical standards. But at the point they threaten to hurt the party and people it's a very difficult line. I still don't trust Obama and think his campaign has been using race as a wedge issue as well, but it's definitely not a wash. So cleaner campaigner versus better president, a very tough decision, but one that I think it's still important to make.