I think Josh Marshall is misinterpreting McCain’s new anti-Obama ad when he compares it to the infamous anti-Harold Ford Jr. ads that played on racist fears of miscegenation (ya’ll sure showed him!). Ross Douthat is also missing the point of the ad by viewing it as having no racial subtext whatsoever.
The underlying phenomenon McCain is trying to exploit here is potential white resentment about Obama’s success. It’s very much like the tenuous, racially charged relationship between basketball fans and basketball players. No one resents franchise owners for being fantastically rich, the same way no one resents McCain for being fantastically rich, because presumably, their riches are “deserved”.
But people do resent players for being “overpaid” the same way the Obamas are resented as elitists for owning one nice house (see the bitter description given to the Obama’s house in this Washington Post article about the Obamas’ slightly better than average mortgage rate — how dare they have a skylight!). By comparing Obama to Paris and Britney, he implies that the attention given to Obama is undeserved, the result of “natural” assets rather than hard work, much like these “spoiled” athletes who “get paid too much.”
So Obama’s success, like that of “overpaid black athletes,” is an affront to hardworking white people everywhere. The ad never mentions Obama’s race as the source of his celebrity, but it doesn’t have to — it’s been part of the campaign long enough for the point to be implicit. In short, this ad is Geraldine Ferraro‘s attack done “right” (in the sense that it leaves few fingerprints). The ad appeals to the sense that Obama needs to be less good at what he does — it’s making some people insecure.
–A.Serwer