The Attack Ads John McCain Never Ran

Call me pollyannaish, but perhaps one day we'll have no need for guys like Davis. Could America possibly become that civilized?

Davis was an EPIC FAIL and don't forget to point out that he also did ads for losers Sununu and Dole. Its funny that he still created ads that supposedly were banned from ever being used. I wonder if any of them ever ended up in "independent" hands. I guess we will never know since the interviewer didn't seem to ask the interviewee. By the way on the matter of race did you happen to ask him why he put Franklin Raines in attack ads with Obama even though he wasn't a part of Obama's campaign? Did you ask about the pictures of Obama in the kindergarten sex ad? By the way Obama's ads had pictures of McCain smiling in them plenty of times.....when he was standing right next to Dubya or hugging him lol

There is a way to run ads and not appear racist or sexist. All you have to do is be as honest and truthful as you can. Just as you can run an honorable campaign.

Oh another thought. If an ad wasn't run because it might have been percieved as bigoted, its probably because the ad was in fact bigoted. Its kinda like my coach used to tell me, "If you are thinking about doing something but you are worried about how it will look if somebody finds out then you probably shouldn't be doing it in the first place"

One list that was not as long as the list of reasons he wasn't able to do his job?
His list of ways to run a good campaign.

If an ad wasn't run because it might have been perceived as bigoted, its probably because the ad was in fact bigoted.
.
Ya think?
.
Could be, anyway.

They were heroes on the campaign. They just were horribly disadvantages running against a black man. Black men are a cinch for president.

Oh,and thanks MS, for reminding us what a mavericky and honorable guy McCain really is.
.
Snark aside, I have a serious question.
.
One of the centerpieces of Bush's campaigns, both for office and for his programs, has been focus grouping everything. There was so much stuff McCain did that was wrongfooted--just the opposite of No Child Left Behind or The Clear Skies Initiative. Did they not focus group their messages? If not, why not? If so, why were the focus groups so useless in tailoring a message.
.
Also, did Davis not notice that the stuff he was allowed to use was backfiring? That if they'd gone with a more racist attack profile, all evidence is that it would have hurt rather than helped McCain? It might have turned that patch in the NYT electoral map redder, but it also would have shrunk it still more.

It's hard to convey derisive, mocking laughter over the internet, but I will try anyway:
Fred Davis III, the advertising mastermind behind John McCain's presidential run
.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
.
Maybe he could have mentioned that John McCain was a POW. I bet that would have helped!
BWAAAA HA HA HA HA HA!

I guess this answers the question "What could McCain have done differently to win?"
.
The answer being "nothing."

They just were horribly disadvantages running against a black man. Black men are a cinch for president.
.
Motherf. You put 'em up, and it's a wrap. All over but the cryin'.
.
I understand that Davis has to blame the candidate. That's what you do when you lose. Blame the horse. When you win, it was steady jockey navigation.
.
(That's another bit of Obama good news. This doesn't seem to be happening.)

It's hard to convey derisive, mocking laughter over the internet, but I will try anyway
.
If it's any comfort, I did that myself when I read this post. Dog looked up, confused.

The problem for a guy like Davis is that the GOP has jumped the shark with all this stuff.
.
We've seen to much already to know that the GOP couldn't care less about honorable service, hellholes, etc. Long before the world knew of Bush or John Kerry one of them escaped combat by getting into the national guard, got grounded, and quit. The other was wounded multiple times after volunteering for one of the most dangerous assignments in the Navy. The GOP's response? Purple band-aids.
.
I know that the media found it impolite to point out the crassness of the GOP's embracing of war-dodgers Bush and Cheney while mocking Kerry's service, but it wasn't lost on the American people.

Another astonishgly short list belonging to Davis III: How to not be a complete tool

"Also, did Davis not notice that the stuff he was allowed to use was backfiring? "
.
Exactly. This is an odd definition of "hands were tied".
.
A D.C. "advertising mastermind" complaining that he wasn't allowed to run ads that wouldn't have worked. That's pretty stupid. Are you sure he isn't a Democrat?

I am going to say this but i won't defend it too strenuously because its all moot now, but Obama won the popular vote by 2 pts. In key battle ground states that margin was about the same. He did all this with the absolute dumbest most polarizing blithering idiot who got convicted of abusing her office in the middle of the campaign for a VP pick. I think picking Romney would have made it a definite nailbiter without taking experience off the table. And in my heart of hearts I think Romney would have won it for him precisely because of the financial crisis. Ill bet Scherer would have been pumping out pro McCain propaganda non stop in light of his full throated endorsement of Romney's idiotic Big 3 plan. Again there is no way for me to prove it nor is there no way for it to be disproved but I definitely believe it

Nine percent of the country thought the country was on the right track.

Davis can stop whining and relax. McCain could have run the sleaziest campaign imaginable; he still would have gotten his behind kicked.

MS, interesting post.
--
The McCain campaign never fully committed to running an unrestrained race-baiting campaign or to running a legitimate, honest campaign. Instead they tried to do subtly racist ads, but it's difficult to be both subtle and effective when race-baiting. (It's way easier with sexism and anti-Muslim smears) They didn't succeed: We could all see the Celebrity ad, for example, was racist. And other ads, like the Middle East oil one with the chanting, were too subtle. Maybe the Wright ad would have been effective, although once McCain responded so bizarrely to the economic crisis, they had lost.
--
Race-baiting is like anything else: it doesn't work if it's done badly. I still think that if McCain had been reasonably disciplined, and the reincarnation of Lee Atwater ran his campaign, he could have won. It's like Schmidt thought all he had to do was broadly hint, and the racism would just magically influence voters to support McCain. Fortunately, McCain's campaign was Kerry-like in its incompetence.
--
jayackroyd, apparently the Kerry people obsessively focused grouped. Didn't work well for them. I wonder if focus groups are more effective on selling policies than selling attacks. And since the McCain campaign didn't do much of the former... I also wonder about Schmidt's difficulties with math affecting the campaign. Apparently he can't comprehend a column of numbers, which seems like a pretty big problem for his job.

Of course, once the Reverend Wright ads had run, it would have been become widespread knowledge that Reverend Wright was a Marine Corps and Navy veteran and received recognition for his service on President Johnson's surgery team.
.
It would have been evident, once again, that McCain's campaign team never did any research, whether it be on the lobbying backgrounds of his staff (Rick Davis/Fannie Mae), Czechoslovakia, the prevailing wage for picking lettuce, Joe the Plumber, or for that matter, Sarah Palin.
.
If McCain wants to restore his good name after the campaign he ran, why doesn't he just apologize instead of sending out surrogates to tell stories?

The contradiction in this article is staggering. How can you assert that Davis' ad campaign failed because he wasn't allowed to use his more provocative ads (a euphemism for race baiting diatribes), but at the same time he lost because it was just Obama';s time -- the stars aligned for him? Seems to me that Davis isn't the only tool here.

Actually, it was possible for McCain to run non-racist ads that were perceived as racist. That is because the GOP has spent the past 40 years systematically running against scary black people. They have further spend the past 25 years or so, carefully crafting messages that tap into voters' subconsciouses. They no longer get the benefit of the doubt.
.
Too bad for McCain.

Hey, here's some horrible financial news (or a horrible take on financial news, whatever works for you):
.
http://daggatt.blogspot.com/2008/11/meltdown.html
.
As of Thursday, $8.3 trillion in stock market wealth had been erased in the US in just the past 13 months. If the year ended on Thursday, the S&P 500 would have been down 49% for the year, the worst annual decline in its 80-year history. (The Dow has been around longer – since 1896. In that time it has had ONE year with a bigger decline – that was its 52% decline in 1931.)
.
The two-year breakeven rate (the difference in yields between inflation-linked bonds and nominal bonds) was minus 4.09%, suggesting that traders are betting that the US economy will face deflation over the next two years....Once you get into a deflationary environment, it gets REALLY hard to turn things around. No one wants to invest now to generate lower cash returns in the future. Consumers hold off as long as possible on purchases to take advantage of falling prices. And the Fed loses its ability to stimulate the economy through interest rate cuts when rates go negative. That is what economists refer to as a “liquidity trap.” When Japan fell into a liquidity trap in the early ‘90's, it took a couple of decades for that country's economy to climb back out.

"Davis described an environment of overwhelming caution at McCain campaign headquarters."
.
This is so asinine on so many levels that further comment would be superfluous.

sgw:

I agree with you thesis re Romney. But the problem with counterfactuals is that there is a reason why they are not reality.

McCain picked Palin because he is McCain. He is the kind of guy who would pick a blithering incompetent just because she's hot for a 40+ politician and the wingnut base loves her. He's the kind of guy who would pick her, virtually unvetted. He's the kind of guy who doesn't care that she wass completely uninformed.
.
IOW, had McCain been the kind of guy who would pick Romney, he'd also be the kind of guy who would not pause his campaign. He'd be the kind of guy who would not change his bailout message every 5 minutes. He'd be the kind of guy who would not propose blanket spending freezes or hold up earmark reform as being key to balancing the budget.

SG- my old friend. Hate to break it to you but your assessment of the battle ground states is misleading. I'm glad to hear the following...
.
"I am going to say this but i won't defend it too strenuously"
.
The truth of the matter is that Obama won all of the original battleground states by sizable margins. The closer races were all solidly red states in the last two presidential elections. What's even more interesting is the vast number of previously solidly fed states where Obama increased Democratic performance substantially despite losing by only a few points. I don't think Romney or anyone else could have helped McCain once the economic meltdown took place -- can you imagine the corporate raider ads the Obama campaign would have done on Romney-- breaking up companies, sending jobs overseas.