Mac Makes the Most of Sarcasm

Between one ad hailing Barack Obama as the Messiah and another comparing him to Paris Hilton, John McCain’s camp might be running the most sarcastic presidential campaign in history, Michael Crowley writes in the New Republic. The tactic is “in stark conflict with his image as a straight-shooting man of noble values,” Crowley writes. “The question is whether he can really be both things at once.”

Campaign ads dripping with sarcasm aren’t anything new, but McCain seems to be laying it on extra-thick. “Up close and personal,” Crowley writes, “he’s the most sarcastic guy Washington has seen since Bob Dole.” Bottom line, though, is that such attacks are getting the desired attention, and perhaps the desired effect. (More John McCain stories.)