LEE ATWATER NEVER REALLY DIED

Newsday's John Riley, bloging about McCain's Britney/Paris ad:

...they didn't pick other big celebrities, who were either men, or black, or married.

What they picked was two sexually available white women.

Kevin Hayden, responding to that notion:

I don't think miscegenation was part of the Video from McStupid. I don't think it was racist. It was just amateurish, irrelevant to most voters and plain old dumb.

I agree with Kevin about the miscegenation -- although it won't disturb me a bit if McCain and his army of Rove monkeys have to answer that charge. This ad isn't saying that Obama wants vacuous Hollywood blondes. This ad is saying that Obama is a vacuous Hollywood blonde.

Unlike Kevin, though, I think it's quite effective.

It's effective because every Democrat who becomes nationally prominent, just by dint of being a Democrat, has multiple albatrosses around his/her neck: dirty hippie, elite, Hollyweird, gender-inappropriate, etc., etc. This ad plays on the latter two.

Remember: Republican attacks have a high rate of success because they play on stereotypes Republicans themselves have spent decades planting in the minds of voters. It's the only thing Republicans do well (besides line their contributors' pockets), but they do it very, very well.