Bungee jumpers for McCain

New ad uses bailout anxiety to push anti-Obama message.

Published September 29, 2008 2:55PM (EDT)

Just saw the new television ad from a group called Rightchange.org. It shows a dude on a bridge (which looks a bit like D.C.'s Taft Bridge) with a megaphone complaining about the bailout and government "welfare." He then hops up on the bridge railing and then jumps. (The video cuts to a shot of his fall being stopped because he's tied to a bungee cord.)

According to the Boston Globe, Rightchange "plans to spend about $1.5 million in [late September] on national cable networks including Fox News Channel, CNN, and CNN Headline News." The group is "financed largely by pharmaceutical executive Fred Eshelman, who has given more than $200,000 to Republican candidates and party organizations since 2002, according to Federal Election Commission records." Shocker.

The organization's site provides a list of 10 things we "need to know" about Barack Obama's economic plan. Oh, please. Isn't it funny how the same conservatives who argued for deregulation are now using the deregulated economy fiasco to complain about somebody who, we're told, has no policy accomplishments and yet somehow is still to blame for the financial mess we're in?


By Thomas Schaller

Thomas F. Schaller is professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the author of "Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South." Follow him @schaller67.

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2008 Elections Barack Obama John Mccain R-ariz.