Thursday, July 24, 2008

Lots of static in new Obama Spanish language ad

Since the Barack Obama campaign is not much more than a marketing exercise--the man with the thin résumé has no record to run on--it's amazing when you discover that the geniuses running the enterprise botch a radio advertisement.

The Washington Times has the story:

As the battle between John McCain and Barack Obama for Hispanic votes heats up, it raises the question of what relates better, an immigrant father or an absentee father? For Obama, the answer is an absentee father.

This morning Obama's campaign e-mailed reporters the script for his first Spanish-language radio ad of the general election, designed to portray him as sharing the same experiences as many Latino voters, and it included these lines:

"His father was an immigrant. His mother from a humble, middle class family. Through student loans and hard work, he graduated from college.

More...
But about an hour later the campaign sent out what it said was the final script, which changed those lines to read:

"He grew up without a father — raised by his mother with the support of his grandparents."

I don't remember Obama writing in Dreams From My Father that he grew up without one.

Here's a disturbing sentence from the first draft of that ad:

Obama never pulled people down as he made his way up…

Try telling that to Alice Palmer--his predecessor in the Illinois State Senate. She anointed The Chosen One as her successor, and when she changed her mind about not running for re-election, Obama had her thrown off the ballot for petition irregularities. Palmer was the first person--that we know of--who Obama "threw under the bus." Barack Obama Sr. is the latest.

This sentence made it into both drafts of the ad:

In the State Senate, he passed a law that helped reduce the welfare roles by over 80% by helping families to secure jobs.

Here's what AP wrote when the Obama campaign used that same claim in a television ad:

But to suggest Obama personally "slashed the rolls by 80 percent" is a stretch; federal law signed by President Clinton required the state come up with a plan to trim the welfare rolls. Obama said he would have opposed Clinton's initiative.

Obama's latest ad is not muy bien.

Technorati tags:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"His father was an immigrant..." who went to HARVARD for a PhD. I seriously doubt that the Mexican busboys and lawn mowers he is trying to reach can relate to that experience - or the experience of being in this country LEGALLY.