WASHINGTON - Barack Obama can’t seem to please the folks running John McCain’s campaign for the U.S. presidency.
They criticized the Democratic candidate for not visiting Iraq, but then he spent nine days abroad, visited both fronts in the U.S. war on terror, didn’t make any fatal 
mistakes and drew 200,000 people to a speech in Berlin.
Now the Republican’s campaign has a new beef against the Illinois senator — he’s way too popular, the most popular celebrity in the world, bigger even than Britney Spears or Paris Hilton.
It’s a point McCain makes in a new TV advertisement.
“I would say that it’s beyond dispute that he has become the biggest celebrity in the world. It’s a statement of fact. It’s backed up by the reality of his tour around the world,” McCain adviser Steve Schmidt told reporters in a conference call.
“They have more fans around the world than Britney Spears does. I make that bold blank statement,” added McCain campaign manager Rick Davis.
But McCain traveled around the world and met leaders too, so isn’t he a global celebrity as well? What’s the difference?
“We see him more as a global leader than a global celebrity,” Davis said. “When people in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, want to talk to somebody who has a leadership and knowledge of positions around the world, they talk to John McCain. I contrast that with Barack Obama’s own trip to Europe. The focus on media, the focus on events and activities, is much more something you would expect from someone releasing a new movie than running for president.”
McCain’s crew sees devious motives behind the cultivation of popularity. Davis said it lets Obama “create a fan base around the world that allows him to get a lot of media attention and avoids him having to address the important issues of our time.”
But won’t people see the ad as negative campaigning?
Barack Obama started it, Davis said. He attacks McCain harshly every day on the campaign trail. Plus he was the first to turn to negative advertising, both in the primary and in the general election.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to protect my candidate,” Davis said.
“I’m going to let the American public decide what is negative or not negative.”
So what do you think, is it a fair ad or not?
Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.
Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Crowds cheer Obama outside No. 10 Downing St. in London on July 26); Reuters/Brian Snyder (McCain speaks at campaign evenint in Maine July 21)
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Senator McCain’s big flaw as a candidate is that he is neither charasmatic or popular.
- Posted by AnubisBarack hasn’t been able to score more than 50 points in any poll so far, despite having the unconditional support of the lame-stream media. Even John Kerry was performing better in polls 4 years ago. Americans are far smarter than what people think, people realize that this guy is an empty suit, a teleprompter reader, that this guy is nothing without his well rehearsed speeches. Is just matter of time for Barack to implode.
- Posted by John Doe[...] the most popular celebrity in the world, bigger even than Britney Spears or Paris Hilton." Tales from the Trail
- Posted by Obama's Biggest Flaw Revealed - Southern Maryland Community ForumsWG- I just don’t get “despise him.” It seems a bit over the top. Given that there are really only two people left on the planet that have a chance at being president in November, I would rather pick the guy that noticed that my salary went down twice since Bush has been in office, than the guy that says we need to keep pumping mil-bil- trillions into Iraq, while home owners, banks, and -Dear Lord, even Bennigans, goes under.
- Posted by Truth Be Told1. The now infamous ad that McCain’s running isn’t just equating Obama’s popularity with that of Britney Spears et al. It’s another “Willie Horton” ad, to subliminally influence white voters against voting for Obama, by insinuating into the campaign the Southern racist view that all black men are only interested in raping white women, especially young and pretty blondes.
2. Re the rumors about Obama’s ineligibility to be President of the U.S.A. Ridiculous, McCain’s the one with the questionable natural born citizenship problem. As reflected by all the racist remarks about getting Mexicans out of the U.S., everyone by now knows that any child born on U.S. soil [Hawaii is a U.S. State] is ipso facto a citizen of the U.S. No educated person would accept factually inaccurate descriptions or rumors of what the U.S. Law is. Read the U.S. Constitution, educate yourself, you might discover a lot of things you didn’t know, it’s available online, just search for it under its name. Here’s the pertinent section:
Amendment 14 - Citizenship Rights. Ratified 7/9/1868.
- Posted by M.F. Donnelly1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
An educated voter, M.F.D.
Responding to WG. According to U.S. Law if you are born in the United States you are considered a natural born citizen. Obama was born in Hawaii thus making him a natural born citizen. Also what excuses McCain is not the citizenship status of his parents but rather the fact that he was born on a U.S. Military base in Panama which by international law is U.S. territory rather than panamanian much in the same way that an embassy is the soil of that particular country.
- Posted by CRMMcCain’s campaign is getting really desperate to find an issue on which he can get some traction. Right now in state by state counts Obama has a good lead in states with 284 electoral votes, McCain in states with 147, leaving 107 electoral votes in toss-up states. McCain’s only hope is to “run the table”—that is to take all the toss-up states and take at least one state the size of Ohio or Michigan from the Obama column. It’s almost hopeless and so they are willing to try anything.
McCain’s campaign is both dishonest and dishonorable. I hope he pays for it.
- Posted by Allan H. ClarkWG: The law you refer to is for people born OUTSIDE of the U.S. Senator Obama was born IN the U.S., as PJK pointed out.
This is a classic Republican tactic to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt among Americans who are too stupid or too uneducated to know better.
It should have taken you all of 5 minutes of research to discover the answer to your own question. Why didn’t you do that before posting the ridiculous e-mail on this blog?
How many other inane Republican smears have you subscribed to, without researching, in order to come to the point where you “completely despise” Senator Obama?
- Posted by KWH[...] the most popular celebrity in the world, bigger even than Britney Spears or Paris Hilton." Tales from the Trail
- Posted by Obama's Biggest Flaw Revealed - Southern Maryland Community ForumsResponding to WG:
B. Obama was born in 1961 in the state of Hawaii. He is a natural born citizen of the US.
- Posted by PJKMcBush can’t get any attention except by attacking Obama. He’s like the old man in the back of the old folks home mumbling to himself.
I think that since Rove’s book of republican dirty deeds starts with… “first, give the finger to your opponent”,… that political attacks are common fare these days on both sides.
Vote Obama… vote for freedom… vote for America!
- Posted by BushGuiltyAsSinCan anyone find the truth behind the following statement, which I received recently? I’m NOT an Obama fan; in fact, I completely despise him. But, for all the hate-mail, ‘informative’ emails, etc., etc., that I receive, this particular one made me go “hmmmm, if this isn’t true, how could someone possibly print it! Or, if it is true, who has been hiding it, and for what ulterior motive.”
The email I received:
I think everyone should maybe wait until next week to see if this hits the fan. I did not find anything to confirm or refute this story.
Maybe we need to contact the Attorney General, or our congressmen, and get them to look at it too!
I received the message below and have searched for something to dispute it. There is nothing on SNOPES to dispute this.
CAN OBAMA BE PRESIDENT?
It seems that Barack Obama is not qualified to be president, after all, for the following reason:
Barack Obama is not legally a natural-born, U.S. citizen, according to the laws on the books at the time of his birth, which falls between ‘ December 24, 1952, to November 13, 1986.’ Presidential office requires a natural-born citizen, if the child was not born to two U.S. citizen parents; which, of course, is what exempts John McCain as he was born in the Panama Canal zone.
U.S. law very clearly stipulates: ‘If only one parent was a U.S citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten years; at least five of which had to be after the age of 16.’ Barack Obama’s father was not a U.S. citizen, and Obama’s mother was only 18 when Obama was born; which means that although she had been a U.S. citizen for 10 years (or citizen perhaps because of Hawaii being a territory), the mother fails the test for being so, for at least five years prior to Barack Obama’s birth, but after age 16.
It doesn’t matter about the after, though. In essence, she was not old enough to qualify her son for automatic U.S. citizenship. At most, there were only two years that had elapsed since his mother turned 16 at the time of Barack Obama’s birth when she was 18 in Hawaii. His mother would have needed to be 21 (16+5) years old, at the time of Barack Obama’s birth for him to have been a natural-born citizen. As previously mentioned, she was a young college student at the time and was not 21 years of age. Barack Obama was already three years old at the time his mother would have needed to have waited to have him as the only U.S. citizen parent. Obama, instead, should have been naturalized; but even then, that would still disqualify him from holding the office.
“Naturalized citizens are ineligible to hold the office of President”. Even though Barack Obama was sent back to Hawaii at age 10, all the other info does not matter, because his mother is the one who needed to have been a U.S. citizen for 10 years prior to his birth on August 4, 1961, with five of those years being after age 16. Furthermore, Obama may have had to remain in the country for some time to protect any citizenship he would have had, rather than living in Indonesia. Now you can see why Obama’s aides stopped his speech about how we technically have more than 50 states, because it would have led to this discovery. This is very clear-cut and a blaring violation of U.S. election law. I think the Governor of California would be very interested in knowing this if Obama were elected President without being a natural-born, U.S. citizen; and, it would set precedence. Stay tuned to your TV sets, because I suspect some of this information will be leaking out over the next several days.
Interesting! Now what? Who dropped the ball, or are we all being duped? Who do you know who you can forward this to that might be able to help answer this question?
- Posted by WGMcCain has already told how he’s going to fix the economy: he’s going to cut taxes more, increase “war” spending (= trillions of handouts to the shareholders and executives of Halliburton, Boeing, Blackwater, Lockheed etc.) and balance the budget in four years. So now he can concentrate on Obama.
- Posted by acerbicPoor Brittany and Paris. They didn’t ask to be in a Republican ad. Come on John, lets hear what you’re going to do for the economy. You seem to be so obsessed with Obama that you can’t get with the issues. At least these ads are safe for you, there is a script involved and you don’t have to worry about misspeaking, just reading the scripted lies.
No, it is not fair but makes McCain look so ridiculous that there is a silver lining to such a lame ad.
- Posted by SusanWho ever cared about the masses? Euphorias usually do not last long.
- Posted by joyce singhaAnd Obama can get as popular as he wants within Europe. Sorry but the Europeans are not selecting the American President. And of course Obama is free to move to Europe and run for whatever kind of political office he wants to.
Thinking people can figure out the complete lack of experience and O’s other left leaning ideologies.
Is it negative? Of course.
Is it logical? No.
Is it emotional? Yes.
Quick Quiz: How many people thought George Bush was too stupid to be elected President?
I’ve talked to tons of people over 10 years who felt that Bush was too stupid. Yet he won twice.
He didn’t make appeals based off intelligence, reason, logic, or wit. He used *Fear* and *emotion*.
He *feels* like McSame to me.
- Posted by SonOfHistoryProfHAHAHAHA~! Thats ALL He Could Come Up With! At least Obama is out there seeing how things TRULY are; how the World REALLY IS spinning, he’s not basing facts on preconceived notions like others… Tell your boy to get his arse out there and PERHAPS he may get the same status. However, one never knows, we all saw how well the Heidi Montag gig worked!
- Posted by DawnMcSame guarantees us 4 more years of a failing economy, a rise in the biggest deficit in our history, war mongering in countries that we may not have invaded and occupied yet, more dependence on oil, more insults to the ecology, more governmental interference from the right wing crazies, more tax breaks for the rich, more anti-choice judges, and so on. And what are our options? Of course we look to Obama. God knows the Republicans have destroyed the America I was born in 64 years ago.
- Posted by laraineGee David, could you have printed more of the comment from the McCain campaign, how about a little balance. Also why wouldn’t we want a president that is popular. Thanks to W. everyone hates us. It’d be nice for once to have someone ‘popular’ in office. Thirdly this is just the McCain campaign grasping at straws. Don’t they have something more important to talk about?
- Posted by joeThis ad is unbelievable. Is the McCain campaign insane?
- Posted by LBen