It goes to character....good character.

Learn, people.

When you're apt to attack, attack, attack, and not play up your own superior qualifications in a campaign, you're desperately trying not to lose.

And McCain got his ass handed to him.

"My favorite ad of the campaign was as simple as it could be," Davis said. "And it started out something like, 'Long before the world knew of John McCain or Barack Obama, one of them spent five years in a hellhole because he refused early release to honor his fellow prisoners, while the other one wouldn't walk out of a church after 20 years of the guy spewing hatred towards America.' And the last line was, 'Character matters, especially when no one is listening.' "

The fact that this guy thinks this would have been the best ad is amazing. Talk about being amazingly out of touch with the rest of the country and yet put in such an important position.

DamnYankees:
The fact that this guy thinks this would have been the best ad is amazing. Talk about being amazingly out of touch with the rest of the country and yet put in such an important position.

After reading that I'm a little surprised he figured out that attacking Oprah would was a stupid idea.

DamnYankees: "My favorite ad of the campaign was as simple as it could be," Davis said. "And it started out something like, 'Long before the world knew of John McCain or Barack Obama, one of them spent five years in a hellhole because he refused early release to honor his fellow prisoners, while the other one wouldn't walk out of a church after 20 years of the guy spewing hatred towards America.' And the last line was, 'Character matters, especially when no one is listening.' "

The fact that this guy thinks this would have been the best ad is amazing. Talk about being amazingly out of touch with the rest of the country and yet put in such an important position.

I came here to post that exact paragraph. But you know, I think it probably would have been somewhat effective if used early in the campaign, before the POW stuff had been beaten to death.

Not saying it's classy or the right thing to do, but I think it would have hit pretty well early on.

Yeah, well. The entire campaign was little more than pandering to the lowest common denominator in the party with little to no focus on actual issues. Doesn't really matter what other trashy, pathetic attack adds they had. Davis is an even bigger douche than I thought, though.

I'm pretty sure one more slime-ball ad campaign by one more asshole operative wouldn't have mattered.

Such kind words for Obama may be surprising coming from the man who oversaw the media campaign to destroy Obama's reputation. But Davis is not the kind of Republican operative who looks on liberals with personal animus. At the end of the day, he still has to live among them.

Not surprising at all. Exactly what I would expect from a man with no soul.

I love the fact that so many people still have no idea why it didn't work.

Mordant: I love the fact that so many people still have no idea why it didn't work.

It's obvious. The Republicans were too soft, and not conservative enough.

DamnYankees: The fact that this guy thinks this would have been the best ad is amazing. Talk about being amazingly out of touch with the rest of the country and yet put in such an important position.

We'll be seeing his handywork again in 2012. They didn't get it this year, and they won't get it then.

Lot's of things torpedoed McCains election bid.

Himself being number one.

But had they went negative, Obama would have won by a larger number.

I'm still just trying to figure out how this:

the advertising whiz that John McCain has used for almost all of his campaign media

and this:

and one of the most talented conservative political operatives in America.

can coexist, not just in the same article, but the same sentence.

Sum Dum Gai: I'm still just trying to figure out how this:

the advertising whiz that John McCain has used for almost all of his campaign media

and this:

and one of the most talented conservative political operatives in America.

can coexist, not just in the same article, but the same sentence.

world's tallest midget etc

McCain built an entire political career out of being a POW and ditching his invalid wife for a rich woman to bankroll his career. And then he picked a middle-aged Britney Spears as his vice presidential running mate. He deserved to get his ass kicked, and he did.

And this country will be a hell of a lot better for it.

Remove all Republicans: Why is it so hard for the Republicans to not run attack ads? Obama never attack John McCain on something he didn't deserve. I mean, when Rolling Stone does insightful political cartoons like this (new window), how can you compare the campaigns?

You dont really even understand that cartton, do you?

Schadenfreude ist die schoenste Freude: DamnYankees: "My favorite ad of the campaign was as simple as it could be," Davis said. "And it started out something like, 'Long before the world knew of John McCain or Barack Obama, one of them spent five years in a hellhole because he refused early release to honor his fellow prisoners, while the other one wouldn't walk out of a church after 20 years of the guy spewing hatred towards America.' And the last line was, 'Character matters, especially when no one is listening.' "

The fact that this guy thinks this would have been the best ad is amazing. Talk about being amazingly out of touch with the rest of the country and yet put in such an important position.

I came here to post that exact paragraph. But you know, I think it probably would have been somewhat effective if used early in the campaign, before the POW stuff had been beaten to death.

Not saying it's classy or the right thing to do, but I think it would have hit pretty well early on.

That would have been a terrific ad if it was purely positive.

NOprah

Sigh. I think this guy literally doesn't understand the logical line between racism and criticism. People kept demanding that "all these liberals" were attacking McCain for being racist, or attacking Hillary for being racist, when neither the campaign nor any major news outlet pushed that sort of a line (except, of course, the very story that some imaginary object was screaming racism).

The fact of the matter is that America is so far behind on understanding proper ways to end racism (acknowledge the physical differences, acknowledge potential cultural differences due to natural ethnic segregation and ancestry, learn learn learn, etc.) that most major media outlets probably wouldn't have brought anything even borderline because they would be totally oblivious it was borderline.

McCain ran an extraordinarily negative campaign, and we're suddenly supposed to admire him because his ad director came out publicly about how much more negative the campaign could have gone? Please. Between the Ayers accusations, Sarah Palin, the socialist claims, and the thinly veiled racism ("how much do we really know about Obama?"), McCain established himself as the first person every to go broke underestimating the taste of the American public. To say that we should somehow admire him because he didn't go even more negative is to fundamentally misunderstand why he lost.

Here's a hint, Republicans. Less talk about socialism and "drill, baby, drill" next time, and more honest discussion of your policies. Appalachia aside, we obviously aren't as dumb as you thought we were.

"In addition to the McCain account, his firm oversaw ads for five Senate races, including the hard-fought Elizabeth Dole and John Sununu campaigns. It was a career high point for Davis, who started in advertising at the age of 19, after his father died and he had to take over the family public relations business."

So with McCain, that's 6 races. McCain, Dole, and Sununu all lost. Assuming he won all three other races, and with his track record it's somewhat unlikely, that's a maximum of 50% success. That's a career high? I guess victory for a Republican in 2008 means not shiatting your pants while drunkenly crashing your car into the child of your long-lost lover.

^^
What Nudge said.

I really can't possibly fathom how Ayers attack ads are racist. I mean, there's just no connection, at all. Even if I wear my pants on my head and think backwards.

DamnYankees: Talk about being amazingly out of touch with the rest of the country

irony

John McCain would be President-elect now if only his campaign had followed the advice of this man. Face it, they handled Obama with kid-gloves for months, and they lost.

If they would have run ads about the fact that Obama was the disciple of a racist for 20 years. They would have won.

If they would have run ads about the cultish nature of the Obama machine, they would have won.

Heck, they should have backed the efforts that brought up the fact that Obama may not be a natural-born citizen of the United States. Obama has never presented valid proof of that status, and it's clearly a sore point. Which suggests that Obama did something to renounce his citizenship, or he's not eligible at all.

The McCain campaign spent too much time trying to impress media outlets that would have NEVER given him any leeway. He should have worried about making sure that the working-class families of America had no trust at all in Barack Obama. The working-class families should have associated McCain with progress and change to get our economy rolling, and they should have associated Obama with scary unAmerican ideals.

When you fight with one hand behind your back, you lose. And now America is going to lose big-time because the Constitution-Shredder is keeping Bush's lackeys in to continue the Iraq War, while ignoring the constitution and seeking to destroy our Democracy. The only change Obama offers is the change from Bad to Worse.

John McCain is a great man, but he's not good at campaign strategy. Let the media whiners moan about your campaign tactics, and you can watch their whining from the Oval Office.

When you consider the effects of my suggestions compared to what McCain did. Remember that I made a lot of phone calls and knocked on doors using my tactics, and Arkansas moved heavily to McCain. McCain used his tactics, and America moved heavily to Obama.

AgentOrangeDrink: "In addition to the McCain account, his firm oversaw ads for five Senate races, including the hard-fought Elizabeth Dole and John Sununu campaigns. It was a career high point for Davis, who started in advertising at the age of 19, after his father died and he had to take over the family public relations business."

So with McCain, that's 6 races. McCain, Dole, and Sununu all lost. Assuming he won all three other races, and with his track record it's somewhat unlikely, that's a maximum of 50% success. That's a career high? I guess victory for a Republican in 2008 means not shiatting your pants while drunkenly crashing your car into the child of your long-lost lover.

Keep in mind that the article is talking specifically about Senate campaigns. The McCain campaign was Presidential.

As far as Senate campaigns go, there was Dole and Sununu, both of whom lost. Inhofe, Corker and Cornyn. Inhofe (his uncle) ran successfully in 1994 (the year he worked on Inhofe's campaign for the first time) and has held the seat since. Corker won the 2006 campaign that Davis worked on, and John Cornyn won his campaign in Texas this year (which Davis worked on).

So, really, if you want to talk about his Senate success rate, he's at 60%. The Dole campaign had been pretty close, to my understanding, but she lost by 8 points ultimately. I'd guess the "Godless" ad sunk here there. Without that, who knows? She might've squeaked one out and he'd be at 80% in his Senate races.

If you want to talk about his track record in general, that's harder to ferret out. Not every race SPI (his firm) has worked on necessarily had his guiding hand behind it.

martin55: AgentOrangeDrink: "In addition to the McCain account, his firm oversaw ads for five Senate races, including the hard-fought Elizabeth Dole and John Sununu campaigns. It was a career high point for Davis, who started in advertising at the age of 19, after his father died and he had to take over the family public relations business."

So with McCain, that's 6 races. McCain, Dole, and Sununu all lost. Assuming he won all three other races, and with his track record it's somewhat unlikely, that's a maximum of 50% success. That's a career high? I guess victory for a Republican in 2008 means not shiatting your pants while drunkenly crashing your car into the child of your long-lost lover.

Keep in mind that the article is talking specifically about Senate campaigns. The McCain campaign was Presidential.

As far as Senate campaigns go, there was Dole and Sununu, both of whom lost. Inhofe, Corker and Cornyn. Inhofe (his uncle) ran successfully in 1994 (the year he worked on Inhofe's campaign for the first time) and has held the seat since. Corker won the 2006 campaign that Davis worked on, and John Cornyn won his campaign in Texas this year (which Davis worked on).

So, really, if you want to talk about his Senate success rate, he's at 60%. The Dole campaign had been pretty close, to my understanding, but she lost by 8 points ultimately. I'd guess the "Godless" ad sunk here there. Without that, who knows? She might've squeaked one out and he'd be at 80% in his Senate races.

If you want to talk about his track record in general, that's harder to ferret out. Not every race SPI (his firm) has worked on necessarily had his guiding hand behind it.

I know the others were Senate races, I was talking number of total races. And since the Presidential race is far more important, it wouldn't be a stretch to weigh it more than the Senate races, making for a less than 50% success rate. Plus, Dole and Sununu were big races and they both bricked. You can talk about "if" Dole pulled it off, but you could say the same for McCain. I'm not talking fantasy politics. In real terms this guy sucks and shouldn't be hired by anyone for anything more complex than lawn care.

McCainDemocrat:

I'm surprised you still bother to post.

Wait... This idiot is responsible for Dole's Godless ads?

Lando Lincoln: DamnYankees: The fact that this guy thinks this would have been the best ad is amazing. Talk about being amazingly out of touch with the rest of the country and yet put in such an important position.

We'll be seeing his handywork again in 2012. They didn't get it this year, and they won't get it then.

Lessee...according to TFA, he oversaw the campaigns for John McCain, John Sununu, and Elizabeth Dole.
IRRC, they were all basically told by the voters:
"Thanks for playing, and here's your lovely parting gifts."

Is anyone else seeing a sort of...oh, I don't know... pattern here?

McCainDemocrat: assorted trollishness.

Ive been lurking on Fark throughout the election season.... don't you have a bunch of Total Fark bets to pay up on?

FTFA: What if the McCain campaign had run ads using footage of Barack Obama dancing with Ellen DeGeneres to show his coziness with celebrity? Or followed up on its Paris Hilton ad with others featuring Donald Trump and Jessica Simpson? All of that was on the drawing board of Fred Davis III, the advertising whiz that John McCain has used for almost all of his campaign media and one of the most talented conservative political operatives in America. Oh yes, he also had an Internet ad up his sleeve that would attack Obama's celebrity by associating him with Oprah. But in the end, he scotched that one. "We decided you don't really fight Santa Claus or Oprah," he says, "so we removed her.

Obama would still have been elected. See people care more about putting food on the table and being able to have a job in order to put food on the table than whether or not their president hangs out with (or in this case) is a celebrity.

Mordant I love the fact that so many people still have no idea why it didn't work.

It's the same morans that keep saying Palin didn't hurt the ticket.

I still would have voted for Obama even if McCain picked Richard Dawkins as his VEEP. (yea yea, veep has to be an American natural born citizen).

Please let these people continue to influence the Republican party.

Amen.

DamnYankees: "My favorite ad of the campaign was as simple as it could be," Davis said. "And it started out something like, 'Long before the world knew of John McCain or Barack Obama, one of them spent five years in a hellhole because he refused early release to honor his fellow prisoners, while the other one wouldn't walk out of a church after 20 years of the guy spewing hatred towards America.' And the last line was, 'Character matters, especially when no one is listening.' "

The fact that this guy thinks this would have been the best ad is amazing. Talk about being amazingly out of touch with the rest of the country and yet put in such an important position.

I always love how they point this out without mentioning the US Military Code of Conduct that forbade McCain to ever consider parole over anyone who was there longer than him. I'm sure plenty of his fellow POWs got similar offers only to decline.

"Where's the outrage??"

McCainDemocrat: John McCain would be President-elect now if only his campaign had followed the advice of this man. Face it, they handled Obama with kid-gloves for months, and they lost.

If they would have run ads about the fact that Obama was the disciple of a racist for 20 years. They would have won.

If they would have run ads about the cultish nature of the Obama machine, they would have won.

The thing about McCain is that he has actual honor, however, so stooping to half-truths and outright lies is not really his style.

Obviously the guy isn't perfect, he's made the occasional poor judgement call and has something of a temper. But overall he's a good politician -- in the ethical sense, though not necessarily the 'skilled' sense. Same goes for Obama, really. Has made some poor judgements regarding who he's associated with, a bit pompous and even arrogant at times, but overall a more or less stand-up guy (for a politician) with reasonably sound judgement. I tend to think they saw this in each other, which was why the tone of the campaigns stayed so respectful until Palin farked it up, and even then the other three mostly just tried to ignore her.

In the absence of Palin and the general greater malfeasance of Reps over Dems the last couple terms, I would have given McCain even odds on winning, he's a solid candidate for the position in his own right. As it was, though, he was more or less screwed from the start, so meh.

//Voted Obama, just so it's known before people start arbitrarily accusing me of holding various straw-man opinions.

McCainDemocrat: John McCain would be President-elect now if only his campaign had followed the advice of this man. Face it, they handled Obama with kid-gloves for months, and they lost.

If they would have run ads about the fact that Obama was the disciple of a racist for 20 years. They would have won.

If they would have run ads about the cultish nature of the Obama machine, they would have won.

Heck, they should have backed the efforts that brought up the fact that Obama may not be a natural-born citizen of the United States. Obama has never presented valid proof of that status, and it's clearly a sore point. Which suggests that Obama did something to renounce his citizenship, or he's not eligible at all.

The McCain campaign spent too much time trying to impress media outlets that would have NEVER given him any leeway. He should have worried about making sure that the working-class families of America had no trust at all in Barack Obama. The working-class families should have associated McCain with progress and change to get our economy rolling, and they should have associated Obama with scary unAmerican ideals.

When you fight with one hand behind your back, you lose. And now America is going to lose big-time because the Constitution-Shredder is keeping Bush's lackeys in to continue the Iraq War, while ignoring the constitution and seeking to destroy our Democracy. The only change Obama offers is the change from Bad to Worse.

John McCain is a great man, but he's not good at campaign strategy. Let the media whiners moan about your campaign tactics, and you can watch their whining from the Oval Office.

When you consider the effects of my suggestions compared to what McCain did. Remember that I made a lot of phone calls and knocked on doors using my tactics, and Arkansas moved heavily to McCain. McCain used his tactics, and America moved heavily to Obama.

Meh. 2/10
I would have given you 4/10 but Hillary did use many of those tactics and still lost.

FTFA: All of that was on the drawing board of Fred Davis III, the advertising whiz that John McCain has used for almost all of his campaign media and one of the most talented conservative political operatives in America

Um, given the results of the election, and the fact that more than a few Republican congressmen probably lost thier seats due to backlash agaisnt John McCain, are you sure that you want to use those words to describe this man? It's kinda like saying that the dude who was at the helm of the Hindenburg on its final fligt was the best pilot evar! Say what you will about him, dirty sleazy sun of a biatch that he is, but Rove could more effectively out sleaze this n00b anyday of the week. He's not fit to lick Rove's jack boot. Thank god the Republicans put Rove out to pasture and apparently didn't find a suitable replacement.

Masso: Wait... This idiot is responsible for Dole's Godless ads?

Wow, that's too funny. I donated $50 to Kay Hagan's campaign when I first saw that ad & I don't even live in North Carolina!

Please keep this guy in the Republican Party. Please have him churn out more ads. It'd be the best thing for the Democratic Party since FDR.

El_Dan: McCain ran an extraordinarily negative campaign, and we're suddenly supposed to admire him because his ad director came out publicly about how much more negative the campaign could have gone? Please. Between the Ayers accusations, Sarah Palin, the socialist claims, and the thinly veiled racism ("how much do we really know about Obama?"), McCain established himself as the first person every to go broke underestimating the taste of the American public. To say that we should somehow admire him because he didn't go even more negative is to fundamentally misunderstand why he lost.

Here's a hint, Republicans. Less talk about socialism and "drill, baby, drill" next time, and more honest discussion of your policies. Appalachia aside, we obviously aren't as dumb as you thought we were.


Hey now! Part of Appalachia runs through NC and we went blue baby!

McCainDemocrat:

When you consider the effects of my suggestions compared to what McCain did. Remember that I made a lot of phone calls and knocked on doors using my tactics, and Arkansas moved heavily to McCain. McCain used his tactics, and America moved heavily to Obama.

Aha! So, that's why McCain took Arkansas! He better show up to personally thank you.

the thing that lost it for McCain was that his attempt to paint Obama as such a radical/extremist/,militant black/unAmerican went too far. It was unbelievable. Therefore it didn't resonate. They would paint this caricature that was so different than what Barack really was that it became a joke to anyone outside of the koolaid crowd.
They only ones buying into it were the ones inside the bubble.
And there were a lot of them. The Fox news/Rush and Hannity crowd.

McCain-Democrat, you're still delusional about the whole thing. The fact is, with the mess the country is is, this was Obama's campaign to lose, and he didn't go about losing it. There's no way that any of these attacks would have ultimately meant more to people than seeing foreclosures all around them and the value of their investments decrease by 40%. The McCain campaign never expressed concrete reasons why he was offering anything different than the policies that have been followed for 8 years. From the middle's perspective, Obama may be too inexperienced and radical, but he's more of an unknown than McCain, and when you have shiat in one hand and a box in the other, which one are you going to choose?

I'm sure Time is interested in keeping this guy's name before the public since the insurgency has just begun.

//the more radical they made Obama, the more people voted for him

This just goes to show, again, how rich white old guys just can't catch a break in America.

I heard that McCain vetoed an ad that was about the issues, calling it "too inflammatory'

Hobodeluxe: the thing that lost it for McCain was that his attempt to paint Obama as such a radical/extremist/,militant black/unAmerican went too far.

Nah...the base lapped up every drop. ;)

martin55:AgentOrangeDrink:
So, really, if you want to talk about his Senate success rate, he's at 60%. The Dole campaign had been pretty close, to my understanding, but she lost by 8 points ultimately. I'd guess the "Godless" ad sunk here there. Without that, who knows? She might've squeaked one out and he'd be at 80% in his Senate races.

If you want to talk about his track record in general, that's harder to ferret out. Not every race SPI (his firm) has worked on necessarily had his guiding hand behind it.

Well, his firm, responsible for THE ad that killed her campaign... doesn't sound well. I mean... his firm will not be remembered for engineering ads for the three shoo-in races that they won, they will focus on the three tough losses they endured. Culminating in "Godless" and "Celebrity"

Yes, that "talented conservative operative" really scored big on the celebrity ads. Quite effective I'd say.

He would of still lost big, a few commercials with Obama and "The Donald" wouldn't have swung the election for what people perceived as another 4 years of George Bush.

The thing that got me was that he complained that he couldn't attack Obama on crime without being called a racist. Well, maybe if the Republican party hadn't spent the last 35 or so years running race-based scare ads thinly disguised as ads about crime prevention, maybe he wouldn't have had that problem.

The reason a crime ad would have looked racist is because they've always been racist, and running one against a black candidate would have made that obvious.