Posted by
Steve on Monday, August 04, 2008 10:06:39 AM
It seems to me that John McCain has finally found the way to fight the Obama sensation is with humor. He first hit him with the comparison between Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears and Barack Obama as being just a celebrity. That created a tornado of a response from the liberals. You would think that McCain had compared Obama to Hitler or something the way they carried on so. But, the commercial made the point that Obama is a celebrity and nothing more. He has done nothing worthy of being made a celebrity, he just is one.
The second commercial just came out. It pokes fun at the way the press has been treating Obama. The press treats Obama as if he is the second coming of Jesus Christ. They only show him in pictures that project a religious image. He has a halo around the head and the like. Many people have been calling him the Obama Messiah. The commercial plays on this fever of adoration. It builds on the comments from Obama himself that he can do things that only a Messiah could do. One of these things is to make the oceans recede and also some other similar things like that. Then, near the end of the commercial, it cuts to Charlton Heston in “The Ten Commandments”. That is the point at which you just roll on the floor laughing.
Since liberals in general and Obama followers in particular do not have a sense of humor, they did not take the commercials very well. Their response is more of a, “How dare you”, than anything worth commenting on. That is what makes this even funnier. If they had laughed at the commercials and gone on, the commercials would have been worthless. Because they hit a sore spot, they are priceless. Humor is always better than any other way to tell your story. People respond well to humor. They do not respond well when people are mean spirited.
McCain needs to keep up with the humor and needs to keep poking Obama in the spots where he knows it hurts. Obama thinks of himself as the one person that can solve all the world’s problems. That means that he takes himself very seriously. He will not react well to humor. He thinks that he is too serious for humor. That is why humor works so well on him. He thinks he is above humor and will be offended when it is used. That means keep on using it until things are no longer funny. Remember that Obama believes everything that he says on the campaign trail. That also makes him vulnerable to pokes in the ribs about what he says.
McCain is invulnerable to humor. McCain uses humor on himself all the time. Obama cannot use it with any real effectiveness against him. What humor can Obama use that McCain does not already use? There are few open spots where McCain takes himself so seriously that humor would disarm him. That is precisely why it works so well on Obama. He does take himself that seriously.
Now, McCain cannot hope to win the Presidency with just humor, but it can be a wonderful tool in his arsenal. If he keeps poking fun at himself, he keeps that tool away from Obama. Any time you can keep ammunition away from your opponent in a political situation you should do it. Any time your opponent hands you ammunition to use against him, you should use it. That is just the way politics is played in the United States. If you are not willing to play by those rules, you should not be in American politics. You will not be in American politics for long, because you will lose every race you run in.