McCain and GOP are not Clinton, and they will not concede one inch on this topic, period.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/070 8/12224.html

Obama's aim, in the view of the McCain camp: "to delegitimize any line of attack against him," said McCain aide Steve Schmidt. He said he saw that potential trap being sprung when Obama predicted in Missouri Wednesday that the GOP nominee would attack the Democrat because he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

"I don't [care] whether it helps or hurts us," Schmidt said. "A lie unresponded to becomes the truth."

But Schmidt said McCain had learned the lesson of Clinton's campaign, which began by taking her and her husband's affinity with African-American voters for granted but wound up seeing days and weeks consumed by racially charged gaffes and allegations, ranging from a New Hampshire supporter's suggestion that Obama had dealt drugs to Bill Clinton's own comparison of Obama's campaign to the Rev. Jesse Jackson's.

Remarkably, in fact, Schmidt sees a sort of political soul mate in Bill Clinton. "Say whatever you want about Bill Clinton," Schmidt said, "but it's deeply unfair to suggest his criticism of Obama was race-based. President Clinton was a force for unity in this country on this subject. Every American should be proud of his record as both a governor and president. But we knew it was coming in our direction because they did it against a President of the United State of their own party."

No, you lack the ability to analyze cultural texts.

I'm not going to bother explaining it to you. Read a few well done pieces on the McCain campaign like
http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/local/lo ngisland/politics/blog/2008/07/sex_celeb s_why_britney_and_par.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/07/30/ politics/fromtheroad/entry4309536.shtml

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7 /31/142834/892/240/560121

tonight.

Have you seen what the GOP did to Harold Ford in his Senate race?

Granted, that ad was much more explicit...but it only takes a little of the subtext to set some sensibilities off.

The idea that the ad makes a cut from Obama immediately to two white women is supposedly a subliminal trigger; the lightest association possible.  This wouldn't have an effect on or be noticable to anyone but racists, so if true, it's extremely sneaky.  

Sounds like a real stretch to me, but it certainly matches Rove's earlier 'country club' comment, which was just blatantly playing that angle.  I think there's no doubt that some would love to spread that evil meme, but it has tremendous potential to backfire, so if you do see it it's likely to be extremely subtle and completely deniable.

Go ahead and vote for McCain Kingsb.  You guys have 1/100th the following of log cabin republicans.

Good.  Luck.  With.  That.

I don't see the racist theme here. I believe it is just what they claim it to be, an attempt to paint Obama as someone who is as vacuous and inane as Paris or Britney.

I'm in the Memphis area. I saw the ads against Harold Ford when they ran. This is nothing like those.

Look it matters not the intent of a message or a commercial . It is the impression the individual listener or viewer gets. If a sexual connotation is  the message Josh got fine. And it is also quite reasonable to assume others did not see it that way.

We each have our own filters. Those filters are what make one person hear one thing and another hear another even when the words are identical.

Let's move on.

We are never going to see it again. The Hilton's have raised a holy stink about it and they are very  very large Republican donors

Juxtaposing pictures of young blonde white women with the image of a black man most certainly does raise uncomfortable echoes of common racist phobias and stereotypes. It's a pretty subtle in this context, but I expect the racial messaging to get blunter as the campaign continues. McCain's camp will go as low as it needs to in order to rally any remnants of the GOP southern strategy they can find.

But back to the ad: consider other celebrity women they could have chosen. Why not brunettes? For that matter, why women? Why not male celebrities? And why two figures whose popularity arguably peaked four years ago? Because they're young, blonde, white women.

If you don't understand this, take some time to try before running to the defense of John McCain.

> why women? Why not male celebrities?

For the same reason they call him a "starlet" and a "debutante". They are trying to feminize him, like they have every other male Dem Presidential candidate for quite some time. The choice of Paris and Britney is about 75% gender trashing/homophobia, 20%+ charges of elitism, and maybe 5% racial innuendo, if that. I can easily picture them running the same comparison if the Dem nominee were white. They call Edwards "The Breck Girl" and made much of his haircuts, for example.

In my opinion, McCain wanted to explicitly paint Obama as a vacuous hollow celebrity with no substance. Not entirely sure about the racial-sexual overtones but I understand that Republicans know what makes their base tick and introduce subliminal messaging to target that - I wouldnt be surprised if Josh is correct. The reaction from McCain and Rick Davis I thought was surprisingly strong considering Obama has talked about his funny name and looking different several times. It looks like a planned effort to bring up the race card.

if the obamas keep seeing racism in everything, people will take notice. it is about growing up, presidential campaigns are not childrens crusades & tough, sharp elbows politics is to be expected, no whined about

Rule 1: If everyone thinks it was racist, it's overblown.

Let me ask the counterquestion: Why didn't anyone claim the "Gas Prices are Obama fault" was racist?

Easy. Because it didn't strike anyone as racist. It was devoid of racial symbolism.

This time, you have widely separated sources wondering if this ad was racially tinged. Do you suppose no one in the McCain camp perceived the symbolism?

Finally, if you think this was a total coincidence, why use "from the bottom of the deck" as a comeback, when first time that was said that was during the O.J. trial? (oh snap, black men and white women again).

Still coincidental?

Huh? "everyone" sees it as racist? Are you ok?