Thursday, August 07, 2008

McCain’s Sleazy Campaign Ads

Recently, Paris Hilton created her own ad to counterattack presumed Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s ad that compared the heiress and celebrity with his political foe.

Yes, McCain has launched some sleazy ads against his Democratic presumed presidential counterpart, Barack Obama. Because of certain things that Obama has said, McCain had campaign ads that linked the Illinois Senator with airhead celebrities or is the next political Messiah.

And yes, these campaign ads are sleazy and tactless. Sadly, they do not begin and end with John McCain. All politicians from both sides of the political aisle enjoy launching their attack ads at their opponents.

But who is it really for? Are these ads for die-hard political supporters with their rose-colored glasses locked on? It’s only these people who usually eat up these ads, but where does it leave the rest of us who are looking beyond these political shenanigans and want real substance from the people who want to be our next president?

People like us would rather have McCain and Obama spend their money more wisely by telling us what their plans are for this country with its crumbling economy and facing a global terror war. But instead, they would rather childishly criticize each other than offer real solutions to the problems we face.

And the real sad part is that Paris Hilton made more sense in her mock campaign ad than either McCain or Obama in their attempts to fix the oil crisis.


Paris Hilton For President - Wait What?!!

But no, that does not appear to be what these candidates are after. As one reader told me in the last presidential election while I was an editor of a newspaper, “It seems as if the candidates spend more time telling us how bad the other guy is.”

And that’s exactly right. Last week we had Obama falsely accusing McCain and President Bush of planning on using racial scare tactics and offered no real proof of them doing it. And McCain has been telling us that a star-struck Obama would not make a good president.

If candidates are unwilling to give voters more informative campaign ads that tell us how they are going to make their plans work for Americans, than at the very least, stop with the tasteless attack ads. By doing so, these candidates insult our intelligence.