It first caught the attention of Democrats familiar with the Left Behind series, a fictionalized account of the end time that debuted in the 1990s and has sold nearly 70 million books worldwide. "The language in there is so similar to the language in the Left Behind books," says Tony Campolo, a leading progressive evangelical speaker and author.
As the ad begins, the words "It should be known that in 2008 the world shall be blessed. They will call him The One" flash across the screen. The Antichrist of the Left Behind books is a charismatic young political leader named Nicolae Carpathia who founds The One World religion (slogan: "We are God") and promises to heal the world after a time of deep division. One of several Obama clips in the ad features the senator saying, "A nation healed, a world repaired. We are the ones that we've been waiting for."
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A Moses-playing Charlton Heston parts the animated waters of the Red Sea, out of which rises the quasi-presidential seal the Obama campaign used for a brief time earlier this summer before being mocked into retiring it. The seal, which features an eagle with wings spread, is not recognizable like the campaign's red-white-and-blue "O" logo. That confused Democratic consultant Eric Sapp until he went to his Bible and remembered that in the apocalyptic Book of Daniel, the Antichrist is described as rising from the sea as a creature with wings like an eagle.
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But serious Antichrist theorists don't stop there. Everything from Obama's left-handedness to his positive rhetoric to his appearance on the cover of this magazine has been cited as evidence of his true identity. One chain email claims that the Antichrist was prophesied to be "A man in his 40s of MUSLIM descent," which would indeed sound ominous if not for the fact that the Book of Revelation was written at least 400 years before the birth of Islam
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The conservative website RedState.com now sells mugs and t-shirts that sport a large "O" with horns and the words "The Anti-Christ" underneath.
We have seen Obama push back against the Celeb ads, but not so much the One Ad. In my opinion, it is the most dangerous ad that the McCain camp has produced because it plays on the ignorance and fears of those in rural communities. The Time article ends by suggesting that Evangelicals are not going to come out in large numbers for McCain, but they will if they believe they are fighting the Anti-Christ. I also believe that Obama is more vulnerable to this type of attack because being an African American, he is most likely to be perceived to be "not like us". So, in my opinion, there are racial undertones with respect to the ad as well. By and large, the McCain campaign is using fear to motivate Evangelicals to come out and support his campaign. I also believe they will run more of these ads in the Fall to win places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Some here may say, people just cannot be so stupid to believe this type of stuff. But, remember, these are the same people who voted for Bush. They will believe it and we cannot afford to have this election go down to the wire because of a ridiculous smear campaign.
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