mike meyers

Update: The McCain campaign finally posted a version sans Wayne's World clip.
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I wasn't going to post about this, but Mike Myers took it to a new level of awesome, so here goes.

Earlier this week, McCain (as I'm sure you all saw), released a web video attacking Obama for his "celebrity status." It was a decent parody of old school album commercials that insulted the intelligence of young voters, and was basically a ploy to grab some media attention:

In that, it was fairly successful. The video made its way around the web this week, hitting pop culture and politics sites alike. I didn't want to encourage that, so I didn't post about it at the time. We all know that McCain's campaign has gone completely negative and needs to depress youth turnout if he's to have any shot at winning. Why help?

I'm writing about it now, days after the fact, because Mike Myers, who's Wayne's World sketch is used in the web ad, demanded that the McCain campaign remove the video from YouTube or face legal action for copyright infringement. McCain pulled the video, though as you can see others have already reposted it. My bad, the McCain campaign doesn't seem to care. It's still up on their YouTube page, and it's also still featured on their website.

Again, I think this continues to play right into McCain's hands, as the message on his blog is clearly gleeful about the reaction from Myers. It plays right into their messaging. Still, I did want to point out that this is not the first time something like this has happened to McCain. John Hall and John Mellencamp (not exactly paragons of contemporary cool, but pop culture stars nonetheless) both requested that McCain stop using their songs at his rallies, to say nothing of the recent Paris Hilton video. Despite the fact that McCain is one of the most pop-culture friendly presidential candidates in history (just look at McCain's resume on IMDB), the culture revolts against John McCain.

At what point does all this become counterproductive and McCain become reduced to the crazy grandpa in the media and in the eyes of everyone under 40? Or are we already there and is all this aimed at a different audience?