In a campaign that seems to have gone on forever, it's hard to remember a time when John McCain wasn't hammering Obama with negative ads and overwrought zingers at campaign rallies. Remarkably few attacks seem to have stuck to Obama, though not for lack of trying on the part of McCain and Palin. Here's a collection of some of the campaign's greatest hits:
"Lipstick On A Pig"
When Obama referred to McCain's tax plan as the Bush tax plan with a different name, he lapsed into the folksy to describe the plan as putting "lipstick on a pig." McCain seized on the opportunity, saying that it was a reference to Sarah Palin's RNC convention, in which she referred to herself as a "pit bull with lipstick." McCain put out an ad called "Lipstick," which can be seen below. McCain eventually dropped the attack, which is probably just as well, given that Meghan McCain noted that her father used the phrase "lipstick on a pig" himself.
"Pallin' Around With Terrorists"
Earlier this month, the folksy again became pointed as Sarah Palin described Obama as "someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," in an apparent reference to Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the Weather Underground. The line became a staple of her stump speeches for the next few days. The association had already been used in the campaign but it was given new life when McCain released an incredibly disjointed ad, seen below, which tried to tie Obama to the radical. The attack had its time in the spotlight, and McCain promised to bring Ayers up at the second debate, which he did, but by the third debate, McCain referred to Ayers as an "old washed-up terrorist," basically closing the book on that attack.
"That's One Of The Tenets Of Socialism"
The most recent of McCain's attacks accuses Obama of wanting to "redistribute the wealth" of America. Based on an encounter with Joe the Plumber, who quickly became the hot topic of the third presidential debate, McCain and Palin have been hammering home that Obama's middle-class tax cut could be interpreted as a form of socialism. After the debate, the McCain camp quickly cut an ad featuring "Joe the Plumber," below, and Palin has remixed her stump speech to include the line "Now is not the time to experiment with socialism." This attack also seems to be on its way out, perhaps because Joe the Plumber's comments regarding Israel and Sammy Davis Junior have made him slightly less than an ideal campaign focal point. Obama has mocked the attack, saying that "By the end of the week he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten," and McCain admitted yesterday that he does not think that Obama is a socialist.
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