“IT'S CALLED GOSSIP AND OF COURSE IT'S AN OBSESSION OF MINE” -ANDY WARHOL

In 2000, when he was running for the GOP nomination against George W Bush, McCain made himself into the country's greatest talk show guest. He showed up on David Letterman, Jay Leno, and everything in between with banter and laugh lines that put the best of Tinseltown to shame. Later, he would show up hosting Saturday Night Live in 2002 and on the mock news of Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, knocking the ball out of the park every time. Now McCain is still showing up on Letterman and SNL but with a creakiness much closer to Charlton Heston than Jackie Gleason.
 
Additionally McCain admits he doesn't know much about economics and computers. Neither does my 82-year old Godmother. But here's the thing, she's looking for good bargains on Channel outfits to wear out to lunch with her friends, not running for the Presidency of the richest, largest and most technically advanced economy in the world.
 
Same thing applies to the use of Britney and Paris in his ads. For one, they are both so 2007. Bad girl burnouts Amy Winehouse and Lindsey Lohan would have been much more current and, in all honesty, much more damning, but that would have meant the McCain people actually paid attention to Pop Culture and took it seriously. People love to scoff at Pop Culture as if it is somehow outside the perimeters of real life, but they forget the "Pop" in Pop Culture stands for "popular." If you mock what the people like, what the people talk about, you either better be spot on or walk away. I'm not saying McCain or for that matter Obama should do a voiceover in the next Grand Theft Auto video game, but they both should remember that the celebrity culture of 2008 permeates everything.

-www.examiner.com