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Home > Blogs > Ohio politics > Archives > 2008 > September > 23 > Entry
Eye on Ohio: ‘Obama Destination ad’
By William Hershey
Dayton Daily News
THE AD: “Destination,” a 30-second TV ad
PRODUCER: Barack Obama campaign
WHERE TO SEE IT: National cable; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lYjyWlL5lo
SCRIPT:
Barack Obama: I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.
Announcer: Bermuda. It’s more than just a vacation destination for John McCain. McCain went to Bermuda and while he was there pledged to protect tax breaks for American corporations that hid their profits offshore. And grateful insurance executives and their lobbyists who benefit from the tax scheme, gave McCain $50,000. John McCain. He took a vacation, and so much more. And we get more of the same.
VIDEO: Opens with Obama and running mate Joe Biden campaigning, with smiles and sleeves rolled up, a couple of happy warriors on the campaign trail. Cuts to beach and ocean, with “BERMUDA” superimposed on the scene, just so viewers will know where they’re being taken. Island music is playing in the background. Next a cropped picture of John McCain in sunglasses crowds onto the screen. McCain’s mug then moves to the viewer’s left — not the candidate’s usual position - as a news story about McCain’s 2007 trip to Bermuda where he talked with business leaders flashes onto the right side. McCain’s picture gets bigger in the next shot, shown against the backdrop of a skyline in some city where his “executive” and “lobbyist” contributors are supposed to work. Ad then travels back to the beach, with McCain’s mug fading out and “We Can’t Afford More of the Same.”
ANALYSIS: As attack ads go, this is pretty straightforward and hits lots of hot buttons with voters worried about the economy and looking for scapegoats. The villains are familiar ones - corporations that do business offshore and a politician who is their friend and takes their campaign contributions.
The smoking gun is a copy of a story from The Royal Gazette, a Bermuda newspaper, reporting on McCain’s trip to the island in August of 2007.
“McCain pledges to protect Island’s insurance sector,” the headline blares. According to the lead of the story, McCain “has pledged to protect Bermuda’s international businesses if he is successful in his White House bid.” According to the report, McCain “said he understood the concerns of the insurance and reinsurance sectors about draft legislation proposing a clampdown on US business operations in so-called tax havens.”
In McCain’s own words: “The industry, the re-insurance that’s had such phenomenal success has been good for both nations. I would oppose any measures that upset that.” Interestingly - and not mentioned in the Obama ad - is another paragraph in the story that said earlier in the year Bermuda officials discussed the “tax haven legislation” with Obama’s fellow Democrat, U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.
Rangel told the officials that Bermuda was not on the list of jurisdictions that could suffer from a “clampdown” on offshore U.S. operations. Still, the ad highlights a side of McCain - the internationalist and friend of international business - that doesn’t sell well in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other battleground states where “global economy” amounts to fighting words. McCain took the trip at a time when his prospects for the nomination looked pretty dim so maybe he wasn’t thinking about how his Bermuda vacation would look to voters in Dayton, Detroit and Scranton. As the McCain campaign pointed out in its response to the ad, Obama’s not exactly a sworn enemy of international business. His campaign leases its Chicago campaign headquarters from Accenture, described by “The Hill” newspaper as “one of the nation’s most aggressive outsourcers.” Also, as the McCain campaign also pointed out, Obama has taken thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Accenture employees.
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