Next, with the Britney & Paris ad, the intention is to catch Obama throw a tantrum. Then, instead of the amiable Bill Cosby type of black man, he suddenly becomes the Richard Pryor “That N****’s Crazy” dude – without the comedy.

In fairness to McCain, that’s not an irrational assumption.

jaloren is right about our ignorance as a population– what is it, 20 percent of us think that the sun orbits the Earth? I am inclined to blame the press’s inability to report the news for quite a bit of our ignorance. But admittedly, much of the fault lies not in our celestial bodies and media stars, but in ourselves.

hilzoy has an interesting examination of John McCain: The Man, the Myth, the Legend today. As jaloren points out, his biography is 100% about biography. His policy-free belief in his own righteousness gives rise to a deep resentment of a man 25 years his junior with the impudence to contest his efforts to ascend to the presidency.

In fact, as good as Bob Herbert’s column was yesterday, that right there is the best argument as to why the crankiness and immaturity of McCain’s campaign is due to something other than dog-whistle appeals to racism– he and his advisors believe that his personality and biography entitle him to the presidency, so their sophomoric ads reflect a genuine jealous infuriation with Obama.

Oh, and as to “must everything these people do be so unreservedly ill-informed, lame and clueless?”

Yes.

What else do they have? They’re behind, they have no policy views that aren’t hated by 60 percent of Americans (other than the ill-informed support for drilling for oil). So they go nasty and stupid. No reason to believe it can’t work.

As you have pointed out, this campaign is based on biography, not policy. That means evaluating the electoral impact of a campaign based on information, argumentation, and analysis is off base. When assessing the electoral decision that campaign makes the question is: do they identify with me or him?