Paris Hilton: Opens Mouth, Repeats Republican Message

I never in the life of me expected to say this, but Paris Hilton has taught the world something about politics today.

Her video response to McCain's attack on Obama is, from Obama's point of view, a case study in how not to do deal with being attacked.

The first, perhaps the only thing that politicians needs to do when attacked is stop your opponents framing the debate. The McCain ad was quite a clever attack. If you watch it you'll see it turns Obama's recent successful world tour into a weakness. He's popular and acclaimed worldwide. that world tour was designed to preset Obama as a statesman who can be trusted leading the free world. It succeeded. But the McCain as also succeeds in turning it into a weakness.

Obama is too popular. He's a celebrity, like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears, shown at the start of the clip - a clear visual message which can be accepted when the same thought expressed in words might be rejected. the McCain team are making Obama different from the ordinary farmer in Iowa, or the Appalachian (what do they do in Appalachia anyway?) who will decide the election. America might be celebrity-obsessed but many of the swing voters have deep resentment for those who live lives of effortless leisure half a continent away from their own everyday concerns.

Once you've got past the "celebrity" attack there's also a policy attack, which is also cleverly selected. The voiceover asks "More foreign oil?" but the image is the money rattling up at a petrol pump - which is certain to trigger anger or frustration from ordinary Americans pouring dollars into their (huge and immensely inefficient) cars. It's associating Obama with the problem everyone's experiencing: high pump prices - as well as, incidentally, pointing out that even though he's been feted across the world, he's not got the answers on foreign policy.

It's even more effective because it's not even slightly racist. (OK, someone seems to think it's racist. But that's barking.) There are black celebrities and white celebrities, and ordinary people resent most of them regardless of colour. The ad wouldn't have worked if the McCain team had picked a black celebrity as the visual anchor for the first 15 seconds. I can't even think of a suitable vacuous black celebrity: it would have been a disaster to use someone genuinely popular (like Oprah) or genuinely controversial (like a rap singer who has done one song too many about shooting people).

So, on to Paris Hilton. Her response is great for her profile - her fame depends on being famous for doing nothing, and this gives her another chance. But for Barack Obama it's bad news. The fact she's responded is all over the media, reinforcing the assocation that Barack Obama is something to do with Paris Hilton and getting the original ad far more exposure than it ever had.

So I've said it before and I'll say it again: Paris Hilton PLEASE JUST SHUT UP!