08AMA Funny (and not so funny) bits from the campaign trail.

Cute.

McCain supporters, give up. Your candidate already has. This is McCain’s attempt at saving face, so that after he loses on Tuesday, he won’t be remembered as a bitter old hate-monger.

I will give her props for seeming to be a good sport about it until the aid grabbed the phone away.

In what must be the best demonstration of Sarah Palin’s ignorance regarding the Constitution to date, Palin said in an interview today:

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

Okay, Sarah, here’s what the First Amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That’s right, “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” In other words, dumb hicks like you can say whatever you want, and “liberal elitists” can say whatever they want as well. People calling you a negative campaigner has nothing to do with your freedom “to call Barack Obama out on his associations.” Besides, if memory serves me, aren’t you the one who inquired about banning books?

So, in the spirit free press, here are a few of my personal favorite names for Sarah Palin:

The Princess of Podunk
The Ruler of Rubes
The Grande Dame of Dimwits
The Matriarch of the Mindless
The Birdbrained Baroness
The Cretinous Countess
The Dense Duchess
The Empress of Ignorance
The Shallow Sultana
The Overlord of the Obtuse
The Self-Righteous Shah
The Uncultured Contessa
The Czarina of Zealots
And last, but certainly not least, The World’s Largest Moose Knuckle

From The New Republic:

Is the election driving you crazy? Are you losing sleep over the fact that the awesomest guy ever might lose the presidency to a grumpy old jerk? Well, the waiting is the hardest part, and you only have to wait four more days. Here’s how to make it through the homestretch without losing your mind.

1. Learn how to read polls correctly: Too many people live and die by the fluctuations of polls, which are inherently imperfect. Here’s how to read polls. If the results are good, that means Obama’s winning. If the numbers look bad, that means the poll is a piece of shit and the pollster is a Republican. To make this point to others, make sure to say the phrase “highly suspect internals” a lot. If someone asks you what that means, call them a racist.

2. Convince yourself that more of the same is okay: After all, a lot of good came out of the last eight years: Will Ferrell came into his own as a leading man. Kevin Garnett won a title. Hot dogs stayed delicious. Internet porn got awesome.

3. Get really into a hobby for the next four days: Something so fun, so wonderful, and so engrossing that you’ll completely forget about the election. Yes, I’m talking about cross-stitching.

4. Avoid political discussions: Sure, it’s not totally up to you. Someone could walk up and start talking about politics. That’s why you distract them by wearing one of those Rastafarian wigs. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much of the would-be political conversation gives way to loud ridicule and name-calling.

5. Take a whole bunch of sleeping pills and don’t wake up until Tuesday. Sleeping pills are dangerous, so you have to make sure to take the exact right amount. Here’s how–swallow as many pills as you can until you feel yourself dying. Then just vomit lightly and you should be all set.

6. Forget politics and remember what really matters: A child’s smile. The crisp air after a rain shower. The smell of freshly-baked cookies. Music spilling onto the street from a rooftop party. Only some of those things would be outlawed by President Palin.

And finally…

7. Remember that Obama’s already got this thing wrapped up: Thanks to a little thing called voter fraud from our friends at ACORN! Ha ha ha, you Republican fools! This race will be decided by the likes of “Mickey Mouse” and “Tony Romo”! You neglected the ACORN, and it grew into a mighty oak of corruption! Try again nex–wait, what? Voter registration fraud isn’t the same as voter fraud? Mickey Mouse can’t vote? Oh God, we’re screwed. Everyone panic.

From Daily Kos:

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 10/28-30. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines)

• McCain (R) 48 
• Obama (D) 47

Early voters  (17 percent of sample)

• McCain (R) 42 
• Obama (D) 54

 

I can’t believe we may actually win Arizona. And I have a bonus treat for you guys:

If the 2010 election for U.S. Senate were held today for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Janet Napolitano the Democrat and John McCain the Republican?

• McCain (R) 45 
• Napolitano (D) 53

 

For those readers who don’t know, I’m a branding/advertising/design guy by trade. I’ve had several colleagues ask me about both this and the other off-brand ad the Obama campaign released this week. To paraphrase, they all sounded something like:

“…Obama has such a strong brand, with the dark blue and the Gotham typeface. Why would he deviate from that for just this one ad?”

Here’s the answer: He can afford to. There is a point where a brand becomes so strong that it can afford to break its own standards. Brand standards/guidelines only exist to help people make the “Oh, this looks like [brand x]” connection. After achieving ubiquity, promotion that breaks convention has a hook. When you begin watching this ad, as well as the finish line one from the other day, you’re hit with an “Oh-this-shit’s-official-pie-in-the-face.” It has more impact…if you know and trust the brand. And the people this ad was made for already know and trust “Brand Obama.” Which brings me to the second reason.

Both of these ads were created explicitly for hardcore Obama supporters, people who have already fallen in love with the Obama brand. Once a brand achieves ubiquity with the masses, it seems less cool to the devoted cult following of early adopters. Take, for example, Seven jeans, which used to be cool. Why aren’t they cool now? Because you don’t have to go to New York or LA to buy them, because they sell them at Nordstrom, because they kept trying to push Bootcut when all the cool kids had already switched to skinny jeans, and because douches who drive H2s wear them. Seven may still make a lot of money, but they won’t last. People who really love denim have already written them off as passe.

But a smart brand can achieve widespread success without losing its cool like Seven did. They do it by parallel marketing (my term). That is, one campaign developed for the masses and one for the hardcore cult. These ads are not made for the same people who the “Obamamercial” was made for. These ads were made for people like me and the Obamamerical was made for people like my parents.

So really, Obama can’t afford not to break his own brand standards right now. With most of his hardcore enthusiasts brimming with poll-driven confidence, they might just take an Obama victory for granted. That’s a risk Obama can’t take. He needs some edgy, off-the-cuff ads to get the grassroots people talking about making that final turn of the final lap and slamming down the gas peddle.

Aww, hell. Here’s the other ad again. It’s pertinent and good enough to warrant two posts anyway:

From The Atlantic:

10. A body blow to racial identity politics. An end to the era of Jesse Jackson in black America.

9. Less debt. Yes, Obama will raise taxes on those earning over a quarter of a million. And he will spend on healthcare, Iraq, Afghanistan and the environment. But so will McCain. He plans more spending on health, the environment and won’t touch defense of entitlements. And his refusal to touch taxes means an extra $4 trillion in debt over the massive increase presided over by Bush. And the CBO estimates that McCain’s plans will add more to the debt over four years than Obama’s. Fiscal conservatives have a clear choice.

8. A return to realism and prudence in foreign policy. Obama has consistently cited the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush as his inspiration. McCain’s knee-jerk reaction to the Georgian conflict, his commitment to stay in Iraq indefinitely, and his brinksmanship over Iran’s nuclear ambitions make him a far riskier choice for conservatives. The choice between Obama and McCain is like the choice between George H.W. Bush’s first term and George W.’s.

7. An ability to understand the difference between listening to generals and delegating foreign policy to them.

6. Temperament. Obama has the coolest, calmest demeanor of any president since Eisenhower. Conservatism values that kind of constancy, especially compared with the hot-headed, irrational impulsiveness of McCain.

5. Faith. Obama’s fusion of Christianity and reason, his non-fundamentalist faith, is a critical bridge between the new atheism and the new Christianism.

4. A truce in the culture war. Obama takes us past the debilitating boomer warfare that has raged since the 1960s. Nothing has distorted our politics so gravely; nothing has made a rational politics more elusive.

3. Two words: President Palin.

2. Conservative reform. Until conservatism can get a distance from the big-spending, privacy-busting, debt-ridden, crony-laden, fundamentalist, intolerant, incompetent and arrogant faux conservatism of the Bush-Cheney years, it will never regain a coherent message to actually govern this country again. The survival of conservatism requires a temporary eclipse of today’s Republicanism. Losing would be the best thing to happen to conservatism since 1964. Back then, conservatives lost in a landslide for the right reasons. Now, Republicans are losing in a landslide for the wrong reasons.

1. The War Against Islamist terror. The strategy deployed by Bush and Cheney has failed. It has failed to destroy al Qaeda, except in a country, Iraq, where their presence was minimal before the US invasion. It has failed to bring any of the terrorists to justice, instead creating the excrescence of Gitmo, torture, secret sites, and the collapse of America’s reputation abroad. It has empowered Iran, allowed al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan, made the next vast generation of Muslims loathe America, and imperiled our alliances. We need smarter leadership of the war: balancing force with diplomacy, hard power with better p.r., deploying strategy rather than mere tactics, and self-confidence rather than a bunker mentality.

Those conservatives who remain convinced, as I do, that Islamist terror remains the greatest threat to the West cannot risk a perpetuation of the failed Manichean worldview of the past eight years, and cannot risk the possibility of McCain making rash decisions in the middle of a potentially catastrophic global conflict. If you are serious about the war on terror and believe it is a war we have to win, the only serious candidate is Barack Obama.

Update: Apparently, McCain had to bus-in 4,000 people to fill the crowd at this speech. So few people are attending his rallies now, the suspicion that most Republicans are only voting McCain because they don’t like Obama is more or less confirmed.

Despite looking amateurish, this is an official Obama for America ad:

Love it. I remember seeing the original on Fail Blog. And no, I’m not ashamed to admit I read Fail Blog.