Obama adviser blames McCain ad for poll dip

A senior adviser to Barack Obama has blamed recent attack advertisements comparing the Democratic presidential hopeful to celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton for a dip in Mr Obama’s polls with voters.

Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate majority leader, said in an interview with the Financial Times that the Mr Obama’s Republican rival John McCain was seeing a “short-term blip” as a result of the advertising, including one that used the image of Charlton Heston as Moses to mock the supposedly messianic Mr Obama as being “The One”.

“To a certain extent the ads are having some effect,” Mr Daschle said. “But you can’t be thrown off your game plan by a momentary dip in polls.”

Until this week polls showed Mr Obama with a slight lead over Mr McCain. Some daily tracking polls this week showed the race tightening, however, leading some Democrats to wonder why Mr Obama has not commanded a bigger lead in an election year in which Republicans are disadvantaged by the unpopularity of President George W. Bush.

Mark McKinnon, a media strategist and former McCain adviser who worked for both of Mr Bush’s campaigns, said of the advertisements: “I think they’ve crystallised their message and I think they’re hitting a nerve.”

Political advertising is effective, he added, when it ties into an overall narrative. In this case, the message has been framed in a positive and negative way: that Mr McCain puts “country first”, while Mr Obama puts “Obama first”. The theme was repeated in a McCain advertisement rel­eased on Wednesday, showing flashing cameras and crowds chanting “Obama” as a voice asks, “Is the biggest celebrity in the world ready to help your family?”

The Obama campaign has sought to convey the message that the Democrat represents “change”.

Mr Obama said on Monday his campaign was engaged in a “constant internal debate” on how to respond to attack advertising.

“[McCain] brought in a team that is adept at this kind of politics,” he said. “This kind of politics has been successful in the last two elections in terms of getting people elected. It has not been successful in governing or bringing the country together to tackle big problems.”

At a fundraiser in Boston, the Illinois senator drew parallels between his primary defeat in New Hampshire and the state of the race. “Everybody was taken aback because we had won Iowa and there was this giddy sense that . . .  this thing is moving,” he said.

“I recite all this history bec­ause we do have three more months of work in this ­campaign.”

Ms Hilton, the heiress, hit back at the McCain advertisement with a video that referred to him as the “wrinkly white haired guy”.