Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo

Breaking news, MSM: John McCain's presidential campaign isn't run by a bunch of morons.

Reading the political press over the past week--in which reporters have happily cataloged McCain's streak of seemingly avoidable public relations mishaps--it'd be easy to believe otherwise. The cheese-aisle press conference in Bethlehem, Penn. The bratwurst lunch alongside a used-car salesman in Columbus, Ohio. The canceled trip to a Gulf Coast oil rig. And, lest we forget, the golf-cart photo-op with 84-year-old former President George Bush in the resort town of Kennebunkport, Me. Not exactly the best way to counterprogram the images of a "young," "vigorous" Barack Obama swanning around the globe with foreign dignitaries, seducing 200,000 starstruck Europeans in Berlin and sinking three-pointers while playing pickup basketball with U.S. soldiers. "July has been a cruel month for McCain," wrote the Washington Post's venerable David Broder. "The worst week of his campaign," added Clive Crook of the Financial Times.

But Team McCain--now led by savvy Bush-Cheney veteran Steve Schmidt--may be a lot less idiotic than the chattering classes suspect. It's not just that the average polling gap between the Arizona senator and his rival from Illinois has narrowed to 2.6 percent in the wake of the latter's overseas adventure, or that 65 percent of voters say the trip left them with either a bad taste in their mouths or no opinion at all. (We predicted last week that Obama's jaunt would have little net impact.) It's that while Obama was abroad the campaign actually launched an crafty two-front ad strategy carefully calibrated to inflict maximum damage on the Dem with minimal backlash. The press may have been too focused on McCain's easily-mockable blunders to get the message. But we're willing to bet that swing voters weren't.

Here's how the strategy worked. Last week, the McCain camp released two ads. The first, "Pump," implicitly linked Obama's opposition to off-shore oil drilling--a stance that two-thirds of the country opposes--to skyrocketing gas prices. The second spot, "Troops," suggested that Obama canceled his visit to a German military hospital because "the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras." Both claims were demonstrably false. I've already called McCain's "Troops" accusation "baseless." FactCheck.org says "Pump" is "absurd."

Sadly, however, a political ad doesn't have to be accurate to be effective. Just ask John Kerry.

The key difference between the two spots is their intended targets. Currently airing in 11 battleground states, "Pump" is "a heavy hitter in McCain's rotation," according to Evan Tracey, who tracks media buys TNS Media Intelligence's Gampaign Media Analysis Group. "Troops," meanwhile, ran as a paid commercial "roughly a dozen" times, total--just enough to get make it the subject of debate (and more than a hundred free, repeat screenings) on local, national and cable newscasts. Today's New York Times called this "a public relations coup that allowed [McCain] to show his toughest campaign advertisement of the year—one widely panned as misleading—to millions of people, largely free, through television news media hungry for political news with arresting visual imagery." But when coupled with "Pump" it's something more: a way for McCain to keep the national political conversation centered on Obama's "patriotism" and readiness to lead (free of charge) while quietly reframing the debate over drilling to his advantage in a slew of key swing states (free of national media interference). As we said earlier, crafty--if not particularly ethical.

For the first month of the general election, McCain seemed to lack a coherent message. But now it's clear that he intends to sow doubts about Obama's policies, experience and trustiworthiness however he can--even by misleading voters. The point: to raise the risk factor. Reasonable people can disagree over whether this assault will work. Earlier this week, for example, we wrote that McCain's nonstop negativity risks alienating moderates originally attracted to his unique brand, and some Republicans, like former McCain guru Mike Murphy, are already saying that the campaign "should ultimately be more about what Mr. McCain would do than Mr. Obama." But one thing that's no longer up for debate is whether Team McCain is getting its "message" out--however many cheese aisles the candidate happens to find himself in. 

We'll know in November if it was worth the effort.

*UPDATE: Changed from "savvy" in the headline to better reflect the point of the piece. (The rest of the item remains unchanged.) The edit was inspired, in fact, by a witty message from reader T.L. (For the record, I had no idea that MSNBC used "clever" in their link until 12 hours after I posted the original item, and, unfortunately, I don't have any control over what they say or do.) Excerpts:

You and your Newsweek editors appear to be confused about the meaning of two words that were used in the heading of your article. Allow me ... Clever: 1 a: skillful or adroit in using the hands or body : nimble  b: mentally quick and resourceful 2: marked by wit or ingenuity. Used in a sentence: McCain's campaign is very clever because they came up with a new strategy that if they release a bogus ad, the media will then talk about it ad hominem instead of doing investigative journalism to discover the ad is completely false -- and then despite being false, the media then treats it like earth shattering news that needs to be discussed for FIVE LONG DAYS.

On to the next word... Savvy: shrewdly informed; experienced and well-informed; canny. Used in a sentence: McCain's campaign is savvy because they know what the Obama camp does not know -- that if you release an ad comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, the press will treat it like real news and report about it non-stop.

By the way -- side note: Kudos for not having crafty edited out of your article. (1. skillful in underhand or evil schemes: cunning: deceitful; sly) Crafty or deceitful -- either of those would have worked much better in the headline.

One quibble: The media--the New York Times, the Washington Post, FactCheck.org and others--has actually been pretty aggressive about challenging the content of these ads. Even my post--which was about how crafty Team McCain has been in distributing these commercials, not the "cleverness" or "savviness" of the spots themselves--very clearly notes (with links to objective debunkings) that the ads' accusations are "baseless," "absurd," "demonstrably false," "misleading" and "not particularly ethical." In fact, far from praising this "message" as "good politics," I write that "McCain's nonstop negativity risks alienating moderates originally attracted to his unique brand." But that doesn't change the fact that McCain is "getting his message out" far more effectively than most observers give him credit for. Which is a big part of winning elections--and certainly something worth paying attention to.