McCain, who has nothing better to do at the moment, is releasing a new television ad. Hell, at least it should get him some cable news chat show time, right? But his new ad feels ... well ... old. It's the kind of ad I could have understood running for Wes Clark -- a four star general most Americans knew nothing about when he ran for president briefly in 2004 (truth in lending: I supported him.) But McCain isn't an unknown. Everyone who hasn't been living under a rock knows that he was a prisoner of war during Vietnam, that he is a war hero, and that he's hellafied old. Is it really necessary to remind us of that in a freaking TV ad? HMM??? Anyhoo, here's the ad. Try not to fall asleep:
Hello... John? Got anything for us on the ECONOMY? You know, the thing most Americans are freaking out about daily while you're offering 100 years of war in Iraq? Maybe John-boy really should pick his arch nemesis Mitt Romney as a running mate. Then at least one member of the McCain team would be doing something other than talking about war. Otherwise, McCain is looking more and more like Bob Dole every day.
I hate to say it, but being president is 40 percent competency and 60 percent charisma. The presidents who are considered "great" or "near great" by most Americans are heavy on the latter, and in many cases, got damned lucky on the outcomes of their policies because they had at least a core competency and common sense. Think Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, even Reagan or Bill Clinton. They were larger than life figures who captured America's imagination, even as their policies appeared to make America better (emphasis on "appeared" in the case of Reagan...) And then contrast that with the also-rans -- people like Jimmy Carter, LBJ, or George H.W. Bush. They lacked charisma, and so their personal lack of appeal dragged their policies into the dungeon, even when, objectively, they may not have been all bad. (Of course, there is the strange case of George W. Bush, a man of questionable charisma and total incompetency, who nonetheless captured the presidency at a time when apparently, America wanted a president who made THEM feel smarter... ahem...)
That being the case, I reiterate that John McCain can at best ... at BEST ... hope to be a competent but uninspiring president -- in other words, a mediocre one. I just don't see greatness in him. And his lack of understanding of the economy guarantees that he won't even be a popular one. And so, devoid of charisma, and relying on old fashioned "Reaganomics" and Bush's foreign policy, McCain cannot hope to lead this country to greatness. His advertising campaign needs to disabuse me of that notion. It needs to jar me out of my long ... looooooong ... sense of memory about McCain, his biography, and my sense of his being a Johnny One Note -- war, war, and more war. It needs to refresh his image somehow, not solidify it.
That said, McCain's new ad is a total flop. And a crushing bore. (Oh, and he recycles Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani's tired line, "ready on day one."
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
