Obama Stars In Mississippi Attack Ad: Watch Video

"The Republican candidate in a special election to fill an unexpectedly contested seat in a conservative Mississippi congressional district is using recent controversies surrounding Senator Barack Obama to tar his Democratic rival," Politico's Ben Smith reports.

The ad references Jeremiah Wright and the "bitter" comments to tie the Democratic candidate to "liberal Barack Obama."

Smith adds:

Unlike a much-reported North Carolina Republican ad attacking Obama, the Mississippi spot is actually airing on television.

The spot marks Obama's rapid ascent in conservative demonology, to a place in an attack ad in a contested race that -- until several weeks ago -- would have been lent to Teddy Kennedy or Hillary Clinton. A National Republican Congressional Committee spot airing in the same district seeks to link Childers to Obama, John Kerry, and Nancy Pelosi.

The ads are a mark of how difficult, with the nomination apparently within his grasp, Obama will find it to stay above or outside the traditional, bitter partisan divisions he so often deplores.

Comments

[starrianna]

I SAY THE FOLLOWING WITH SADNESS, NOT TO BE BITCHY:

I want a strong President.

Obama is folding like a house of cards.

We do not need another wimp as President. We need a real fighter who can win and work hard.

Obama cannot win a fight. He can only try to talk his way out of it.

And Hillary beat him in the debates pretty much 21 times out of 21.

Sad really.

[TrialDate]

The republican ARE so afraid of OBAMA. Americans PLEASE wake up NOW and take control of your country....MR. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA...

[justfine]

I just don't understand why, with all of the Rev. Wright hullabaloo, there's nary a word of Hillary's gang of religious zealots in Washington.
Especially among readers of HuffPo.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/hillarys-nasty-pastorate_b_92361.html

Barbara Ehrenreich is a pretty respected writer. And she is not the only person writing here, on Huffpost, to bring up this story. Why oh why has nobody commented on this and more importantly, why has the MSM not picked it up?

Perhaps the May publication of the referenced book will wake up a few folks. I hope so.

By the way, I have no problem with whomever one wants to follow into a faith. I just think we should criticize equally. Most especially Senator McCain's "agents of intolerance" whom he now so ferverently embraces.

[margoharris]

You know, I am really tired of this election! The SD need to come over to the person with the most pledged delegates, period. If anything other than that and we are finished as a party.
Do you really think Obama can't win against McSame? Yes He Can!! BTW, this operation chaos, maybe it's the way to cover-up all the republicans switching over to democrat?

[TNT2008]

If the other party has not lived up to it's promises of the last eight years, why would we believe anything they try to feed us now? Seems pretty much a given that no one can believe what the conservative party has to say any longer. Maybe in twenty or so years Americans might be persuaded to believe again but that will largely depend on their performance at that time.
That fact that our country is suffering and in terrible shape should not be blamed on Obama or Childers or Wright; the blame lies directly in the lap of Bush and his administration and the Republican controlled congress until November 2006.

[2351]

We have to ask ourselves, do we really want people like this representing us? I don't think so. These are grown people acting like 3rd graders. I can respect a person much more who would not do anyting for a vote. I think that a requirement to run for office is that people have to be tested on their maturity levels. Any conduct that indicates that a candidate is still in the 3rd grade, disqualities them from running for an office that requires maturity. It is really time to put people like this to rest.

[Dulce]

LOL... I never thought I would get to see that. Had I been told, say one year ago or less, that the GOP would actually be running ads to bolster the Clintons primary campaign, I would not have believed it---no way, Jose! Yet, beyond the rationalization of "filling an unexpectedly contested seat in a conservative Mississippi congressional district," or the North Carolina ad being "aimed at Democratic gubernatorial candidates Richard Moore and Bev Perduethis," and whathaveyou, this is really what this is about, isn't it? I just can't believe it---LOL. The GOP has actually endorsed Hillary Clinton...until the primaries are over, that is.

I mean, I was not so sure, just quite yet, with the whole North Carolina ad controversy. A coincidence? Well, it could have been, you know. But, now, Mississippi, LOL. It does seem to me like a little bit much. But then again, who knows? Lightning never strikes twice in the same spot (spot ad?), or does it, now? Maybe it's just a coincidence ;-)

[Dulce]

I am wondering whether the GOP will find a way of running some ads, too, ahead of the few remaining primaries in the sates of West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota?

I suppose it is only fair (and we know how "all's fair in love and war," right?), after all didn' t Senator Clinton say repeatedly on four separate TV appearances (no less): "[McCain has] never been president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002." Or as Bill Clinton put it, speaking of John McCain and Hillary Clinton, wouldn't it "be a great thing if we had an election where you had two people who love this country, who were devoted to the interest of the country ...instead of all this other stuff which always seems to intrude on our politics."

Well, judging from these ads, the GOP couldn't agree more.

[Exit]

Aren't regular Republicans ashamed of such tactics?

[Jazz42]

Republicans ashame.
These tactics has been done by Republican party for years.
Hopefully the American people will not going to buy into their tactics this time around.

[shel3364]

Your headline on the main pages "Obama stars in MI attack ad" is misleading.

MI is Michigan
MS is Mississippi

[mooph]

Headline writers: MS is the abbreviation for Mississippi -- not MI, which is Michigan.

[Maanu]

Oh it's a wrap. As insanely juvenile as this campaign has become, it's pretty much like Access Hollywood political coverage, which is in the public, POPULAR sphere, and subject to current PC morays, which favors Barack and a liberal, young ethos. Give some people enough rope, they will hang themselves with increasingly obvious willful ignorance Just watch the show.

[demdekalb]

Republican chant - Monica, mark Rich, Columbia, Missed Osama when he had a chance. It goes on and on.

[demdekalb]

Monica

[lobo1939]

Surprised? The republican attack machine has just begun. They did not need Obama's "bitter" remark. Did not need Rev Wright. They already had Jesse and the sleezy "call me, Harold" they used against rep Ford and rev Sharpton and Willie Horton and on and on and on. They are nothing if not creative. If the presumpltive nominee was Hillary, they would be dragging out spotted blue dresses and the cattle market and every bar whore in Arkansas and Washington and sniper fire and cookies and chuckles. We let them get by with bald face lies and they laugh all the way to the whitehouse.

[demdekalb]

Mark Rich

[ann1]

Goes to show the Repubs are really scared of Sen Obama. Sen O hasn't even been declared the Dem nominee and yet the Repubs are aiming for him. It's impressive and comical at the same time.

[Trace8089]

It doesn't show fear. It shows how Republicans will use Obama & Reverend Wright to keep working class whites. They will use this strategy throughout the country. It doesn't matter if it's Clinton Or Obama. This is the republicans main weapon. It has worked well for them the last 40 years.The reason it works, Republicans don't rely on black votes to get any of their members elected and they don't fear a backlash.Childers is popular democrat. He's a conservative blue dog. We'll see if it works. He better come out swinging soon or he'll lose. In the south we play rough and if you don't fight back your political career is over.

[FrankBlackFrancis]

It does show fear because the content for their attacks is so weak. If they don't fear a backlash they are mistaken. There is and will be. People are tired of "liberal" this and "liberal" that. It's been used up and the GOP has nothing else to run on but smear smear smear. It happened in 2006 and Dems kicked their asses all over the map. Thankfully for us the GOP is too stupid to realize they are going to well one too many times.

[floydSmoot]

It is most definitely not fear. The republicans, seemingly unlike the dems, know exactly how ignorant, prejudiced, and fearful the american people are and make great gains because of it.

Backlash? Where do you think you are? Europe?

[lobo1939]

If Hillary was winning now, the republicans would be using ads suggesting she was a lesbian or such a cold wife that poor Bill was looking for love in bars. After all a wife that can't bake a cookie no doubt has a cold oven.

[marthainaz]

Shame on Mississippi television stations. They are the ones that should block this kind of attack ads. If the Republicans are afraid of Obama, we know we're doing the right thing by putting him in office because the only way to begin saving this country is to change what they've done over the last 2 terms of Bush presidency. Go Obama! We don't all fall for Republican smear.

[JackieW]

I made my donation to Childers. Time for thinking people to push back.

[Phaedrus21]

I sent a letter to the editor of the Jackson, Mississippi "Clarion Ledger" this morning.

You can, too.

Go to http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=OPINION02

[CindyM2008]

Thanks for the advice. I will do the same.
http://www.childersforcongress.com/tc_contribute.html

[Mattylock]

If Americans are unsophisticated enough to fall for this, we deserve what we get.

[lobo1939]

What do mean "if." Tennessee voters fell for the "call me, Harold," smear. Enough of us fell for the Willie Horton scare to elect the first Bush. W pushed McCain out of the race 8 years ago with the "What if McCain has fathered a black child?" push poll. This ploy of scaring the whites with a crazy black man has always worked. Been used in politics since the good old days of Jefferson, Jackson, Harding. The only lie that is more potent is a whisper campaign that a canidate is gay.

[biglith]

So much of this country really sucks.

[Irons]

This ad preaches to the wing-nut choir.

Dems need to focus on voter registration.

[BethStuart]

Perhaps the Democratic candidate can say a few words about the Rev. John Hagee, McCain's spiritual advisor. Hagee has stated repeatedly that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment. Given that coastal Misssissippi was devastated by Katrina, Mississippi voters might be interested to know that they got what they deserved in Rev. Hagee's eyes.

[iPolitics]

Mississippi is last in the United States in educational achievement according to the Department of Education. Just say...

[hank48188]

Obama has turned into a target, good luck in November

[FrankBlackFrancis]

We're all targets. Luckily we have a nominee that seems to be able to make his critics look petty and silly. Right Clinton supporters?

[Relax08]

Everyone is a target in a Presidential election. McCain's time will come and in the end nothing will change. McCain will still be an old Washington politician beholding to special interests, wanting to keep the country in Iraq indefinitely, and using the Bush economic and social matrix to really screw middle class America. Good luck with that baggage McBushie.

[soot]

Them, Us, Them, Us, Their Endorsement, OUR Values... Nothing like a good divisive ad.