John McCain’s latest ad, “Love,” contrasts himself with those dirty hippies who spent the summer of 1968 on sex, drugs, and rock and roll rather than being tortured for their country.
The voiceover:
It was a time of uncertainty, hope and change. The “Summer Of Love.”
Half a world away, another kind of love — of country.
John McCain: Shot down. Bayoneted. Tortured.
Offered early release, he said, “No.” He’d sworn an oath.
Home, he turned to public service.
His philosophy: before party, polls and self … America.
A maverick, John McCain tackled campaign reform, military reform, spending reform.
He took on presidents, partisans and popular opinion.
He believes our world is dangerous, our economy in shambles.
John McCain doesn’t always tell us what we “hope” to hear.
Beautiful words cannot make our lives better.
But a man who has always put his country and her people before self, before politics can.
Don’t “hope” for a better life. Vote for one.
McCain.
The response I’ve seen so far has been positive.
- Brian Montopoli summarizes the obvious message: “The spot casts presumptive GOP nominee John McCain as a man who served his country abroad while many of his peers were enmeshed in the upheaval of the 1960s at home.”
- DrewM. isn’t so sure, “I think the ad is fine, though I’m not sure tying Obama to the 60s is going to work considering the guy was born in 61.” (The original version of the post, as I got it in Google Reader, had a great line that’s since been redacted: “What’s the next McCain ad going to be…Hey, get off my lawn!?”)
- Matt Yglesias thinks “it’s a decent ad that does the job of simultaneously hitting McCain’s main biographical theme while also trying to position McCain as a candidate for those who think the country’s on the wrong track.”
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (not to mention angering Jim Geraghty) I continue to believe McCain is banging the war hero drum too loudly. He’s quickly getting into Rudy Giuliani a noun, a verb, and 9/11 territory. That he was a grown man dealing with the worst the world has to offer while Obama was in grade school is a point worth making. But it won’t be — nor should it be — enough to get him elected. Elections are about the future, not the distant past.
