Update: McCain Campaign Incompetence

[JHoNNy1OoO]

Images in Link
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/213806.php

A lot of people were asking tonight: what the hell was that mansion up behind John McCain tonight during the first part of the speech? As I noted below, the TV close-ups only showed McCain's head against the grass in the picture, which made it look like he was reprising his famed green screen performance. And when they panned out, it looked like McCain was showing off one of his mansions.

Well, several readers have written in to tell me that the building is actually the main building on the campus of the Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California. And sure enough, this page on the school's website makes it pretty clear that they're correct.

You can compare below ...
So it's not a mansion, but a middle school. But that still doesn't answer the question of why they picked this picture to have him standing in front of -- when I would imagine that 99.9% of the US population would have no idea what they were looking at.

(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Readers JR and EK for cluing us in.)

Late Update: I'm surprised this hadn't occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they're quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this school being behind McCain and the fact that it has 'Walter Reed' in its name, I'm really not sure you can discount this possibility.

On the night of the most important speech of McCain's life they got the image/symbol that would be behind him absolutely wrong. This isn't some stump speech in front of 50, 100 or even 1,000 people. This was a speech infront of MILLIONS and MILLIONS of people. That were tuning in to hear what he had to say so everything was cleverly planned.

I'm sure the majority of the people won't ever hear a word of this. Does the McCain campaign really expect us to believe that they thoroughly vetted Palin when they couldn't even get the correct image behind him on the biggest night of his life?

The McCain campaign has not commented on the image but the school's principal sure was surprised to see it on TV!

UPDATE
Apparently McCain Campaign Ad Man Fred Davis is the one responsible for this mistake. Link

Funny enough the school was also used as a back drop for Jimmy Smits announcing his Presidential Campaign on the West Wing. Link with Video

 

[JHoNNy1OoO]

Bump with update to get some thoughts.

UPDATE
Apparently McCain Campaign Ad Man Fred Davis is the one responsible for this mistake. Link

Funny enough the school was also used as a back drop for Jimmy Smits announcing his Presidential Campaign on the West Wing. Link with Video

 

[TechAZ]

Meh....I don't really care, and I doubt many people do. It's like your wedding day, there will be some people who are pissed about little details and embarrassed, when in actuality nobody cares.

 

[pstylesss]

Originally posted by: TechAZ
Meh....I don't really care, and I doubt many people do. It's like your wedding day, there will be some people who are pissed about little details and embarrassed, when in actuality nobody cares.

Basically. While a big error on the part of the production crew, in the scheme of things its not a big deal.

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: ZeroIQ

Originally posted by: TechAZ
Meh....I don't really care, and I doubt many people do. It's like your wedding day, there will be some people who are pissed about little details and embarrassed, when in actuality nobody cares.

Basically. While a big error on the part of the production crew, in the scheme of things its not a big deal.

Another non-story in this election cycle.

 

[jonks]

Non story, but this time it's funny

 

[imported_Infidel]

Ok, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Even I have standards...

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Well that does it, now I'm definitely not voting for McCain.

 

[yowolabi]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
Well that does it, now I'm definitely not voting for McCain.

If he can't manage a video crew, he can't manage a country.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Walter Reed Middle School was my middle schools rival. I was undecided prior to this incident, but I refuse to support anyone who supports my rival school.

 

[Ballatician]

This is a non-story.

 

[Pens1566]

Originally posted by: Ballatician
This is a non-story.

 

[ElFenix]

life imitates tv, awesome

 

[abaez]

Originally posted by: Infidel
Ok, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Even I have standards...