Do the McCain Ads Work?

All right, Internet, give me your opinion.  I saw this ad over at Talking Points Memo and I have a question:

Aren’t the chances just as good that this ad will, as an after-effect, leave people feeling positively towards Obama?

I mean, I get that for people who are annoyed by him, this ad does a good job of reminding them why they’re annoyed by the kind of cult of Obama which has sprung up around him.  But when 80% of the ad is filled with people having a positive reaction to Obama, doesn’t the ad, at some level, leave you with a positive impression of Obama?

I mean, yes, many of the people in the ad are silly, but they’re excited and seem like they feel good about Obama, and I just cannot help but wonder whether ads like this help McCain or Obama in the end.

Here’s my question put this way.  If you were watching, say, football and this ad came on and you took that as your moment to turn to your buddy and make some Bret Favre comment or to go grab a beer or to glance back down at the paper–so you’re half paying attention to the ad–do you remember it as pro-Obama or not?

I don’t know.  I’m sure they research the hell out of whether this stuff works before they go to the expense of making the ads, but this one has me scratching my head.

Best Kathy Tyson Quote Ever

So, we’re walking around the most fucked up house ever–so cute on the outside, cute front porch, cute back porch, new siding, new windows, new everything, but just a hot mess on the inside.  The layout made no sense.  Some outlets were in the middle of the wall, some were accessible only because they’d cut away baseboard to reveal them, there seemed to be some kind of central space around which all the other rooms kind of were situated, but nothing made any sense.  It was like “living room, bedroom, bathroom with stairs to basement over there and bedroom, attic over here, step down into this room, step up and over into the kitchen” and I felt like there was probably a whole part of the house we just didn’t see because we never could figure out how to navigate the house.

So, we’re standing there in the middle spot trying to figure out something and Kathy just blurts out “Well, they didn’t cut corners on the heinousness, that’s for sure.”

Shoot, I was still laughing about that at lunch.

Which, straight women and gay men who are into blue collar men, let me recommend Kellogg’s where I24 and Old Hickory meet.  At one point, in a packed restaurant, we were two of six women.

Home is Where the Hart is.

We went to look at a house today.

When I first saw it listed, I thought, “Well, shoot, that’s probably it.”  And we went to see it, Kathy, Mack, the Butcher, and me, and seeing it, I thought, “Well, shoot, this is probably it.”

Here are the drawbacks.

It’s far out.

Boots Randolph is dead, so moving right down the road from him would not actually be that exciting.  Unless Boots Randolph is a ghost who haunts the road playing Yakkity Sax, in which case, move this to the “plus” column.

It’s got some hilariously large concrete things, I don’t even know what to call them, just things, lining the driveway.

Um…. Well, I was hoping for a fireplace and a fenced in yard.  But we could for sure have a firepit outside.

There’s no dining room.

We’d have to switch to verizon, because AT&T doesn’t get a signal out there.

Pluses:

It’s beautifully maintained.

The kitchen is drop dead beautiful, but in a way that makes you want to stand in it and chat.  Not too fancy, but very homey.  And it’s got two windows!  My requirement is just one window in the kitchen, but this has two!

It’s got a huge garage.

It’s not so large that you start to feel silly, just being one or two people living there.

It’s out in the country, kind of, so it’s very quiet and beautiful, just sitting outside.

There’s a creek!  You live along a creek!

And, and, and, you live right next door to an antebellum mansion.

I don’t know if you could put a garden out there, because the house is in the old road bed, so it’s quite rocky, but I was thinking, you could probably do a raised garden, if you were willing to haul in the dirt.

But the thing I really like about it is that the folks who live there have lived there for 28 years and they’ve updated it as it needed updating in ways that seem like good choices not to attract buyers, but for people who actually live there (I don’t know if that distinction makes any sense, but I hope so).

I can totally see both a firepit and a clothesline in the yard.

And the guy of the couple that own it is an avid hunter and I think he’d be willing to leave me one of the heads of the deer he harvested off the land.

And I think it’d be easy enough to put a second bathroom in there, if you wanted it, for sure.

I’m a little overwhelmed, but I think it’s the best house we’ve looked at, just in terms of size and land and such.

I don’t know, America.  I’m a little incredulous that you could just look at a listing after all we’ve been through and say, “Well, shoot, there it is.” and go out to the house and be like, “Yep, there it is.”

But maybe that’s all there is to it.