The Obama campaigns response to McCain “celebrity” ad:

Apparently, the McCain is just starting to come to grips with the fact that Barack Obama is a celebrity. Today, they cut this awe-inspiring (enter snark) ad pointing out that, like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, Barack Obama is also well known around the world.

Okay, I understand what they’re trying to do. They want to make Obama into this messianic figure who is too big for politics and too star-studded to deal with the problems Americans are facing. In fact, this ad might even work with some voters. However, it’s flimsy and it reeks of desperation. As Tim Kaine told us yesterday, they are trying to stop a runaway bus and they are grabbing onto anything they can in order to slow the momentum down. In the meantime, they are discrediting their candidate who pledged civility and who said he wanted to run a positive, constructive campaign.

I hope this ad backfires. I hope the McCain campaign will spend their money on talking about issues, like Obama has been. I hope they will stop this silly attempt to define Obama as something that he’s not and I hope that Obama will aggressively repudiate these ads and remind voters the stakes of this election. (Wow, that’s a lot of hopes!)

On a lighter note, I guess Britney Spears and John McCain do have more in common than we thought:

UPDATE: Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod responds.

This is the best ad I’ve seen. Jim Walsh is going down to DoubleSpeak guest and future congressman Dan Maffei.

Great things from Majority Action.

Finally, something good from the Casey campaign.

Check out his latest ad. I have no idea how large the media buy is; I’m in Philly now and I haven’t seen the ad on TV. In fact, I don’t think Casey has been on air in the Philly market since he announced his candidacy.

Dear Mr. Casey-

Matt

Check out Santorum’s new ad against Casey below. It’s clever and I fear that Casey isn’t going to fire back with any real chutzpah.

There’s a hot primary race brewin’ in Wisconsin for Attorney General. The incumbent, Peggy Lautenschlager is facing a stiff primary from Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk. Lautenschlager got in a little trouble a while back when she crashed a government vehicle…while drunk…

From Wikipedia:

In February 2004, Lautenschlager made national headlines after pleading guilty to drunk driving in Dodge County, about an hour away from Madison. A Dodge County sheriff reported to the scene to find her state-owned vehicle in the ditch, and her luckily unharmed inside. Her preliminary breathalizer test at the scene showed that her blood alcohol level was 0.12, 50% above the legal limit of 0.08. Lautenschlager said that she had fallen asleep at the wheel, and had consumed only two glasses of wine earlier that evening. She was arrested, and later released to her husband. She refused a blood test, which is standard for a DUI stop in Wisconsin. (Dodge County Case Number 2004TR001348)

A state Ethics Board investigated Lautenschlger’s case and ruled that some use of the state car for personal use exceeded state-allowed limits. Lautenschlager reimbursed some of the costs and paid a fine of $250. Her driver’s license was also revoked for a year.

Kathleen Falk has been running a solid campaign. They’re organizing to get out the vote and could win this primary over the incumbent in September. Today, Falk’s campaign put out a hard-hitting ad re-introducing the DUI incident, an incident Peggy Lautenschlager won’t soon forget. Neither will her political foes. Check it out.

Feel that soothing relief…

HT Atrios.

Tom Suozzi, who is running against Eliot Spitzer for the Democratic nomination to be Governor of New York was interviewed by the good people over at Gawker. They took his interview and cut three hard-hitting TV commercials that could help cement victory over Spitzer in the September primary. Check them out- pretty funny stuff. (hey, why didn’t we think of that…)

Yes, Suozzi is running far behind Spitzer in the polls, but he’s a solid candidate and he has a bright future in New York State, and maybe even on the national stage as well.