Narrowcasting, but to whom?
The “McCain can’t send an email” ad from the Obama campaign is very odd. A campaign spokesman said: “It’s extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn’t know how to send an e-mail.” So they apparently believe what they’re saying.
Of course McCain supporters point out that, as the Boston Globe reported, “McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from…typing on a keyboard.” Back in 2000, he was called the “most cybersavvy,” of candidates, an “inveterate devotee of email,” who was “the Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee and regarded as the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist.”
So who is the ad aimed at? Is it aimed at young people, the ones that typically don’t vote but are said to be ready to do so this time? Are these the same young people who don’t know how to use “the Google” to check the veracity of the Obama ad? Glenn Reynolds called the ad “another unforced error from the Obama campaign.” Perhaps so.