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A campaign ad released by Republican Presidential candidate John McCain depicts his opponent, Barack Obama, as "The One" - a quasi omnipotent figure similar in stature and importance to Moses. But some Christian supporters of Obama have suggested that McCain's camp is in actuality trying to depict their candidate as "the Antichrist".
The Republican nominee's advisers brush off the charges, arguing that the spot was meant to be a "creative" and "humorous" way of poking fun at Obama's popularity by painting him as a self-appointed messiah.
The ad was the creation of Fred Davis, one of McCain's top media gurus, as well as a close friend of former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed and the nephew of conservative Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. 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, according to Time Magazine.
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."
Christian groups contend that "The One" ad evokes the cover art of several Left Behind books but with sinister orange light surrounded by darkness.
Perhaps the most puzzling scene in the ad is an altered segment from The 10 Commandments that appears near the end. 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.
Democratic consultant Eric Sapp insists, "the frequency of these images and references don't make any sense unless you're trying to send the message that Obama could be the Antichrist."
Obama was a -250 favorite to be the next US President. McCain had 2/1 odds at Diamond Sports
