Meh, I really could care less, just like with the houses. Still, somehow I think some of you guys (Frankie) will love this.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
The commercial is an attempt to play into three themes within the campaign.
1. Obama wants to win Michigan, where presumably this ad is going to air.
2. They are playing up "McCain as liar," and depending on when he said that, this is one of those things which can potentially play well into that. It's an easily proved and easily understood lie.
3. They are playing up rage against the machine (not the band), and implying that while you're getting laid off and your mutual fund just got killed, this guy owns 12 more cars than you do.
This is a smart ad because, to use Peter's numbers, it makes the spot seem like it is about #2, when really it is about #3, which is what really riles #1.
Yeah. "This guy is rich" doesn't matter--number of homes, cars, shoes. Because everyone can aspire to that. It's forgetting the number of homes, or admitting he hasn't driven himself in decades, or making it clear he has no idea what sneakers for the kids cost, that hurt, because no one aspires to those. (As far as I know, only the first of the 3 happened.)
yea, i do like it!
and this is serious stuff in the motor city.
i don't know if it is still true, but a few years ago, you'd better not park your foreign car in the parking lot of a ford or gm or chrysler factory. you just did not do it. or else it might end up being vandalized. in the '80's there were actual physical assaults committed on owners of foreign cars. michiganders look on this issue a lot differently than other folks.
so this will definitely hurt him, in michigan.
the fact of his ownership of foreign cars will hurt, and it will hurt him because he lied about it.
good ad. and i'm surprised that obama would go there.
As others have noted, the point isn't the number of cars, it's the makes. Yet another McCain lie. Bye-bye, Michigan.
When I first watched this ad, I had turn my computer's sound back on. Meanwhile I forgot that I also had iTunes open/playing. Just as the video started playing, so too did the song "Elvis is Everywhere" by Mojo Nixon. For about 10 seconds I was watching/listening to the video and thinking: WTF?!!!
Of course Ta-Nehisi isn't motivated by this kind of ad.
This is the kind of rhetoric that alienated my father, a middle-class fiscal conservative who has voted Democrat straight through, even for Carter in 1980.
There's nothing of substance here. McCain voted not to bail out the American auto industry? Fantastic! They shouldn't be bailed out, the fools didn't anticipate that oil would become more expensive!
But, I don't disagree with the commentors before me who note that this'll probably go down well in MI. But that doesn't make the ad any less bogus.
It isn't quite as strident in Detroit these days. I dropped someone off at Chrysler HQ's a few years ago and there were a lot of foreign cars in the lot. They weren't allowed to park in the covered area, but there were a lot of them.
People here aren't as anti-Japanese as in the 80's, when you could beat an Asian to death with a baseball bat and get slapped on the wrist by the judge.
Isn't the obvious riposte here that he owns TEN American cars? Like who that rich buys 10 shitty American cars? Or even one? What a patriot!
Having read the article on McCain's cars, the only one titled to him is an American car, his wife owns the rest of the fleet, which includes three electric cars which look more like tricked out golf carts
ahh...a kept man! he doesn't even buy his own cars.
there is that little concept called community property, also.
but seriously, no michigan politician - or his family - would be caught dead owning a foreign car. it would be political suicide.
Believe or not this is good for McCain. He comes off as a true American male who likes cars. Obama and his Prius comes off like a latte drinking metrosexual. Bubbas will decide this election. Bubba don't like Prius.
I thought Obama had a Ford Escape or something. Now what's with that? You make a million a year in royalties, married with two kids - how do you even get by with just one vehicle? And why would you be so cheap?
Believe or not this is good for McCain. He comes off as a true American male who likes cars. Obama and his Prius comes off like a latte drinking metrosexual. Bubbas will decide this election. Bubba don't like Prius.
LMAO. I assume this is snark, because it's just stupid.
McCain sure will look manly explaining how none of these cars are his, but rather all his wives. Yesiree Bubba.
And Obama drives a Ford SUV hybrid. No Prius.
That was an incredibly lame ad.
I've always thought the prejudice against foreign cars was a manifestation of the most base kind of selfishness. Boosting crony capitalism because you, the autoworker, are one of the cronies- forgetting that it costs your neighbor in taxes, crappy cars, and really, reduced economic prosperity because if American cars compete on a level playing field, we'd get more income from overseas, rather than just increasing our trade deficit.
Oh, and it's usually couched in "buy union cars"- as though the Germans and Japanese don't have unions.
I'm glad the ad doesn't say Obama WILL bail out the auto industry. I hope he won't. But I guess I don't know.
Stupid ad. Hope it works.
Asher,
As I said, I don't like that ad. But in these times, I respect the one car move. It was very endearing when I read that.
Correct Mr. Coates. We didn't "need" two cars until my daughter started high school and her schedule/events startd to conflict with our son's elementary school schedule. While I'm sure Sen. Obama's not waiting for the subway or CTA bus when he gets around Chicago, I still respect his decision to get by with one car.
It's a stupid ad - I'm not complaining about it though. But what's endearing about one car? I hear that a rich politician has one vehicle, a hybrid at that, and I assume it's just for appearances. Like don't you think Nixon was probably supermindful of what cars he drove, and how many? As I've said, I'm voting for the guy, but I still feel he's just one very carefully crafted image.
Hum. The ad is misleading. I'm not so crazy about Obama doing that. But seriously? Unless Obama's accusing McCain of teaching children to have sex, forging documents on yellowcake that can lead to war, or whispering something racial and sleazy in an ad, I find it very difficult to work up sufficient outrage. After the past 8 years, I'm almost tapped out on the outrage supply.
And I feel Asher, that you doing nothing but attack Obama while claiming you are going to vote for him something similar.
Opinions eh?
I'm glad McCain hasn't got a carefully crafted image. He can't craft an image - he was a POW.
I have no idea why he has one car. Maybe it's to appeal to dyed in the wool lefties like me. Somehow, I doubt it though--I was gonna vote for him anyway.
It's endearing not for political reasons, but for personal reasons. From a voting perspective, I care about your policies, not how many cars you drive or cars you own. Somehow I think Kerry owned more than one car and one house.
Personally, I strive for the ethic of not not overconsuming. I'm very often unsuccessful, but it's an ideal I hold. This falls in line with the whole business of them having no real debt when they had to disclose their finances. I'd never vote against anyone for carrying debt. But personally, it was endearing.
I'd also like to start a rumor that in each of his 13 cars McCain has a missing child stashed in the trunk. It's true because I say it's true, just like all of those McCain/Palin lies.
Oh, and McCain's a cannibal, too.
I don't think Obama is "endearing" for having one car - I think he's responsible.
That's a word that few people use when referring to politicians anymore. It used to be that being "responsible" wasn't such a big deal. But nowadays, it is a rare marker of a true leader.
"Needing two cars" is so quintessentially and quixotically American. What does it mean when the rest of the world looks at us and at statements like that and just can't believe how much we consume?
As for the substance of the ad - Obama isn't judging McCain on his wealth, and hasn't judged McCain on his wealth (sorry, his wife's wealth - as if that's better).
He is instead pointing out that McCain is just a grabbag of lies, some very small ("I don't drive foreign cars") and some huge ("I never asked for earmarks").
"And I feel Asher, that you doing nothing but attack Obama while claiming you are going to vote for him something similar."
That kind of thing is for nuts. I don't really agree with Obama on anything, as I've mentioned (not that there's a great deal to like about McCain's policies either), but Palin disqualified McCain for me. We can't take a risk of her being President and we can't elect someone who would be so reckless that he created such a risk.
Having lived in Obama's neighborhood, on the same street even, but several blocks south, I can tell you that you don't WANT a car in Hyde Park. There's no where to park it when you get wherever you are going. Even if you want to pay to park in one of the very scarce paid spots, you're many blocks from where you want to be. Michelle and the girls can easily walk or take the bus to U of C and the Lab School--it'd be easier than circling endlessly or parking 5 blocks away anyway(although now I'm sure the Secret Service drive them). Their old place was really, really close to both the school and the community service center where Michelle worked, and since it was a townhouse, it did not have its own garage. If you gave up your street parking near home, you might not find a place when you came back home. I let my own car sit for weeks sometimes. When it snowed, this was even worse, because you got plowed in many times.
And speaking for my own self, my spouse and I have gotten by with only one car for the first 7 years we were together. Only last year did we buy a second car--we always made sure one or both of us were within walking distance of work and/or public transit. The second car was necessary because of the arrival of a child whose daycare was not close to either workplace.
In those seven years of one car only, the amount we saved in payments, insurance and gas gave us the difference between renting and owning our own place. It's not necessarily about appearing (or being)noble. Maybe it's more about being practical and frugal.
Speaking of bashing Obama, here's another dishonest ad from him that probably won't get any coverage:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Obama_Stem_Cell.html?showall
Obama wouldn't be doing this ad...and Mccain wouldn't be doing his crazy ads...if some of the voting bloc wasn't swayed by this stuff. Some voters may be waiting to hear the debates before they make a decision, some voters may be too distracted and busy to pay close attention to the campain coverage...but it appears to me that a significant number of voters are complete fools, and Obama is appealing to them, because whether we like it or not, he can't win without them. Good ad? Maybe not. Smart ad? Absolutely.
And with individuals like Bob "Fighter Pilot" Fl daring to spread lies even on a liberal left- leaning intellectual blog where he knows he'll be called on it, God knows the kind of crap they're spreading around their own side, where it probably goes unchallenged and unquestioned. Obama needs ads like this.
I hate this ad. I hated the shoes ad. I hope the person who penned it gets shitcanned pronto. And if it works.. then, that makes me sad.
Does any Senator drive a foreign car? Pat Buchanan got into trouble during one of his runs for president because he had a Mercedes (he said it was his wife's).
Just because Michigan autoworkers don't kill Asian-Americans (not meaning to stereotype all Michigan autoworkers, but google Vincent Chin and the ridiculous sentence his killers got) these days doesn't mean they will forgive a Senator for having a Japanese car.
Is it a high-minded ad? No. But wasn't Obama criticized for being too high minded/Adlai Stevenson?
Remember, even Jackie Robinson retaliated-- just later.
Meh, I really could care less, just like with the houses.
It's the constant - like, all the goddamned time - refrain from McCain-Co. that Obama is an "elitist" that opens him up to this.
If McCain had been a man of his word - insteading of running televised lies the night after his convention promise to run a clean campaign - none of this would get any traction. Does it present a compelling intellectual case for Obama as president? No, his policies and history of sound judgment do that. This stuff simply makes the case that McCain is a dishonest idiot.
I'm sure this ad is effective, but it seems slimy as hell to me. I thought the Democrats were the party that didn't hate foreigners. I guess that only applies to foreigners who don't make cars.
Hating foreigners? The ad is about revealing yet another McCain lie.
The Dems should kick the lying bastard in his lying mouth every chance they get.
Obama lives in a big city, where cars are a hassle. Probably as simple as that.
Hating foreigners? The ad is about revealing yet another McCain lie.
Wait, he does buy American. That's why the ad sucks. They say he owns 13 vehicles and only three are foreign. That's a 77% American fleet of vehicles.
This ad is not about owning foreign cars, per se. It's about McCain saying one thing ("I only buy American") and doing another (three cars "not built in the US", a nice turn of phrase recognizing the state of Michigan's drive to get foreign manufacturers to build in that state. Um, good luck with that).
In other words, McCain's no maverick, he's just like the others. So forget about the blather and vite for the guy who will really help you.
I grew up in Detroit. In the old days (70's and 80's) this add would work.
But now the vast of majority of blue collar workers in Detroit and Michigan not only don't work for the big three, but they can't stand the big three and the UAW (partly resentment for their abnormally large salaries).
As for the amount of cars owned by McCain, just think about this: blue collar workers love Jay Lino who owns a fleet of cars. Believe me, people in Motown couldn't care less about how many cars you own.
THIS ADD WILL NOT WORK.
Typical stupid and useless "gotcha" ad; the issue raised is largely irrelevant and adds nothing of substance to the Presidential debate.
Even though I'm disappointed in Obama's campaign, it seems like this ad and others like it are being created and run in response to the entreaty for Obama to be tougher in this campaign than Kerry was in 2004.