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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2008 > September > 17 > Entry
Eye On Ohio: ‘Still’ ad for Obama
By Jessica Wehrman
Dayton Daily News
The ad: “Still,” 30 seconds. Producer: Obama campaign
Where to see it: It’s airing in battleground states, including Ohio. View it at DaytonDailyNews.com/eyeonohio.
Script: Announcer: “1982. John McCain goes to Washington. Things have changed in the last 26 years. But McCain hasn’t. He admits he still doesn’t know how to use a computer, can’t send an e-mail. Still doesn’t understand the economy. And favors two hundred billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class. After one president who was out of touch … we just can’t afford more of the same.
Barack Obama: I’m Barack Obama, and I approved this message.
Video: To zippy, retro music, we get a flashback to 1982, featuring shots of a disco ball, McCain in thick-lensed glasses, a woman on a phone, a record player, a man working on an old-fashioned computer. Then it zips forward to shots of McCain today, a man on a laptop, a family in a grocery store, McCain and the elder George Bush in a golf cart, and two champagne glasses being toasted. When the announcer says “we just can’t afford more of the same,” it cuts to a shot of McCain and President George W. Bush. It then cuts to a shot of Obama and vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Analysis: This Obama ad underscores themes the Obama campaign has been making virtually since Obama became the nominee: McCain, 72, is old (check out those glasses!); he’s been in Washington for decades and is part of the entrenched Washington culture; he’s out of touch with Americans (no e-mail?); and voting for him would be a vote for a third Bush term. All of this is part of the narrative they hope to create: Obama representing change, McCain representing old-school Washington.
Two facts in this ad are worthy of closer examination. Obama’s assertion that McCain “doesn’t understand the economy” is a fairly subjective assertion, though McCain was quoted during the primary as saying that “the issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.”
More of interest is the assertion that McCain favors $200 billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class.
According to Roberton Williams, a research associate at the Tax Policy Center, McCain’s tax plan would raise taxes for corporations in some areas but cut them in others. The net effect would be cuts of $275 billion over a 10-year period.
Here’s what his center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, had to say about Obama and McCain’s tax plans:
“Sen. McCain’s tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, almost all of whom would receive large tax cuts that would, on average, raise their after-tax incomes by more than twice the average for all households. … In marked contrast, Sen. Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers.”
Jessica Wehrman is a reporter for the Dayton Daily News. E-mail: jwehrman@coxnews.com.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Eye on Ohio
Comments
By Joanie
September 17, 2008 3:12 PM | Link to this
I hope Americans finally get that McCain will only help big business. He plans to continue Bush’s economic policies. They haven’t worked before, they aren’t working now, they won’t work in the future. Vote Obama/Biden!By dag1275
September 17, 2008 2:40 PM | Link to this
Its amazing how McCain has always pushed for DE-regulation and now wants regulation. Question to John McCain: Will you publicly pledge that, if elected, you will not appoint Phil Gramm as your Secretary of the Treasury. “Foreclosure Phil,” author of the legislation that de-regulated Enron, former Senator who gutted the firewall that separated commercial banks and investment banks, a deregulator through and through, who left the Senate and passed through the revolving door to K Street where he lobbied for a foreign bank while serving as the McCain campaign’s senior economic adviser, yes, the Phil Gramm who stepped down as a McCain campaign chairman after uttering the words that the “recession is mental,” and that we are a “nation of whiners.” Phil Gramm, whose 1996 presidential campaign was chaired by, you guessed it, John McCain. Senator McCain - will you pledge that, if elected, Phil Gramm will not serve in your cabinet, as you go ahead and clean up Wall Street? We Americans just don’t get it…especially the people of Dayton. We Americans weave our own wicked web by allowing this to continue. McCain just does not get it.By tom
September 17, 2008 2:13 PM | Link to this
Right on target. McCain has voted 90% of the time with the failed G.W. Bush administration. If you want a third term for this crew, vote the McPalin ticket.