John McCain has a TV ad out suggesting Obama has a messianic complex. Steve Waldman takes a look and concludes,
My guess is that the McCain camp viewed the ad as a three-fer: some viewers would view it as a playful poke at Sen. Obama’s ego, showing Sen. McCain to have a sense of humor and Sen. Obama to be too full of himself. Other, more religious voters, would be downright offended by Obama’s Messianic complex, since, antichrist aside, it’s offensive for anyone to think he’s God-like. And still other voters would view it as validation or reinforcement of the messages they’ve heard elsewhere that Obama is the antichrist.
Among other things, the ad plays on Obama’s popularity with Europeans, and may play on the fears of world government in some corners of American society. Yet, while Obama is popular with Europeans, in an op-ed Susan Neiman has observed:
With gestures that ranged from a wink to a sneer, most anyone you met here [Berlin] this week volunteered the view that Barack Obama’s visit to Europe caused unprecedented frenzy. But it’s been hard for me to find a European, aside from two Harvard-educated friends in Paris, who confessed to excitement — not just about the visit, but the prospect of an Obama presidency.