Willie Horton Ad Creator Releasing Attack Ad On Obama

An old right-wing attack dog has returned with a new target: Barack Obama.

Starting Tuesday, a group of conservative activists led by Floyd Brown, author of the famous Willie Horton ad used so effectively against Michael Dukakis in 1988, will begin a campaign to tar Obama as weak on crime and terrorism, a strategy that aims to upend Obama's relatively strong reputation among Republican voters.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[SaddieMcCall]

Things that make you go hmmm, the Republicans attacking Obama hard in the NC primaries to help out The Clintons. Since when would the Republicans want to help the Democrats get the BEST nominee for their cause?

[RoseFromPhila]

This is just the beginning.......... Obama's Mask is slowly coming off....... talks out of both sides of his mouth ...... more will be coming out soon....... stay tune my friends..........

GO HILLARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[musselmanm]

Tis is another attempt to make a small story into a campaign winning smear.
This is laughable also, just as all of Hillary's ventures into smear have hurt her, the Repukes will end their own game.

[nellie]

The voters who will be impressed by that kind of campaign wouldn't vote for Obama anyway. The Republicans and Independents who support him are looking for change.

[RedWolverine]

Without Dukaki's veto, it never would have happened.

[RedWolverine]

Willie Horton was a monster who murdered a man by stabbing him several times and throwing him in a trash bin. Dukakis allowed him to leave prison on a weekend which resulted in him raping a woman in her home.

The only ad that showed Horton's face was created by THE WOMAN WHO WAS RAPED!!

Willie Horton was a very legitimate reason why Dukakis should not be within 100 feet of the whitehouse.

[ajax2]

The Bush aide who led the Willie Horton campaign, Lee Atwater disagrees with RedWolverine. I think Redwolverine is full of s...

"Dukakis is the person to whom Atwater most famously apologized, in a startlingly candid, first-person piece in Life magazine published two months before his death.
Atwater recounted how, speaking of Dukakis during the '88 campaign, he promised to "strip the bark off the little bastard" and "make Willie Horton his running mate."
Then he said: "I am sorry for both statements . . . the first for its naked cruelty, the second because it makes me sound racist, which I am not."

[mooph]

More reactionary thoughts from reactionary republicans. "Fix the problem after it's become a problem."

[OlderBudWeiser]

So glad to see that Iran sees Obama as a peacemaker and diplomat. That country need to have a part in the peace process and, obviously, are an influence in the region. Glad to know younger citizens growing up smart and informed. I can't help but think Obama is a win-win for the entire world. He's made me religous. I pray for him every day! Today I'm praying for the TKO in Pa. Perhaps Obama can hire Bill to be a foreign security advisor, (karma) if he can learn to keep his mouth shut! His open mike moment " I shouldn't take any sh*t from anyone on that" and that he seemed to be campaigning for Obama yesterday is a good sign. C'mon Pa. McBomb's rendition of the Beach Boys song didn't play well in Iran, no sh*t!
OBAMA 08! In it for us, yes we can.

[nekeb]

http://www.runhardmedia.com/hrc.jpg

If you are voting in Pennsylvania today, and If they hand you a ballot without Obama's name, reject it. Before you vote, call 1-866-675-2008 or go to this link and report the abuse. Barack Obama | Change We Can Believe In | Voter Protection Center -- Know Your Rights

[mooph]

I've heard about this since this morning (on the west coast). Where the hell is the media, the news agencies on this story?

[TrollsTakeYourMedstoo]

It was on black talk radio all day yesterday. These ballots people were complaining were not real ballots. They were samples handed out to people, many of them first time voters, to show them what to expect when they entered the voting booths. There were teams all over Pa. yesterday looking for voter fraud, and did not find any...so far. There were also some of these ballots handed that did not have Clinton's name on them either. Another conspiracy theory runs amok.

[AnotherMike]

With the kind of campaign Axelrod and Plouffe have conducted for the last year and a half, on top of an already charged up youth vote - one that can't be polled because they don't have landlines - we have the opportunity to change the tenor of poilitics for the future. If we let the old white men that have destroyed this country win in November, it will be the last you see of the younger generation's turnout for many elections to come.

We won't allow the "professionals" of American politics to hold on to what they've been long overdue to surrender to the next generation. They've had their chances and look what happened...

It's time we put these greedy pigs in the retirement home with a warm blanket and soft food. It's not their country anymore and we can do a better job running it.

And before anyone freaks out about the "ageism" tone of this post, know that I'm not referring to age. What I'm referring to is about values and respect. Respect of our fellow citizens of the entire planet, not just Americans and certainly not just white men. We understand that times have changed, and it's up to us to respond.

"We are the ones we've been waiting for." - Barack Obama

So go for it, Mr. Brown. Try your very best to make us believe what we know isn't relevant or possibly even true. You'll see how much we accept your dated and out of

[loper2008]

silly. People are not worried about street crime right now. This ad won't do anything. Hello, people this isn't the 20th century anymore, but I'm glad the GOP doesn't know that yet.

[tbone99]

Thats why they used the words urban terrorism, to update it.

[OrangeMocha]

Shhh -- let the GOP think it's still 1988, while the Dems go ahead and win the election.

[Erdgeist]

Legislation, good or bad, doesn't murder people, people murder people.

[don]

Amen to that. The death penalty doesn't deter murder any less than a life sentence. Murderers aren't concerned with any punishment other than the one they're meteing.

[maxwellinformed]

worth posting again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz7UNxnOI3M&feature=related

[Genna]

These Republican activists Always make it about division. NEVER inclusion, acceptance or tolerance.

I think it is important that Democrats don't bend to these racial arsonists. Willie Horton my eye ball. Dukakais was hit because Americans thought he was an automaton. He didn't do much to shake the foundations.

These racial arsonists are going to beat down the Democratic candidate. They've decided it will be Obama. This is a DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY. It is like Republicans activists and donors deciding to fund efforts by Ralph Nader in past elections. If they are going to pull out all the stops, then the Democratic party needs to come up with new barricades or truth ads.

I don't think that Republicans activists have a leg to stand on whether it is McCain or any other Republican this cycle. MSM might absorb every single negative thing that Republicans shoot at the Democatic nominee but the Carvilles of the party need to come out in force.

The question is whether the election gets so partisan that the down scale or upscale Republican will believe it and agree with them.

[maxwellinformed]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=javjtD9SjqA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz7UNxnOI3M&feature=related

[qdog112]

Only in America. So the new litmus test for leadership is the willingness to take another's life. That puts us right there with hardly any other western(1st world) nations. Non issue. He should not run from the left. Barack's plan is to build a coalition. Brown's ad will miss the target He's preaching to the choir. The cross over Republicans are smart enough and won't be swayed in large part.

[maxwellinformed]

Watch and learn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbUUp8tVxIM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajm5JTf7jZs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf7HYoh9YMM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3VqMUiZ2-g&feature=related

[MaracaKabob]

Watching this old man spew a bunch of lies that he heard from someone is embarrassing.
I am a liberal democrat, and I was sick to watch John Kerry get swift boated and watching someone do the same thing to McCain is just as sickening,
Maxwellinformed you are a empty headed crap peddler. FOAD

[maxwellinformed]

That's my point. Willie Horton was crap. The Ayersgate is crap. But if the repugs want to throw crap. This time it will get thrown back at them.

[tbone99]

Who will throw it? Obama is actively courting Republicans and Hilary seems to have gone even more centrist than her husband!

[eladora]

Please Pennsylvania-- end this today. surprise us please .

[LBM]

They're starting to air these in NC. It's a very tough market for them to have any effect, but if they do have success at cutting into Obama's popularity there, then it will be a feeding frenzy. At least these 527's give Obama an excuse why taking public financing isn't equal footing.

[Genna]

I think NC is like PA in that the advertising Obama did in PA was also for the general election Republicans. He was softening them up for the future. Obama needs the margins in these states to go in his direction.

This group needs to go both ways. It is trying to influence the Democratic primary, but it is also hitting NC Republicans before the general primary. The group needs to lather up the downscale/upscale Republican so much that they are saying:
I hate this guy. I hate him more than my economic interest. I
hate him more than my family's well-being. I hate him. I hate
him.

Obama needs time across the country so he can choke that message out. Diners. Stadiums. Person to person.

McCain needs time to show who he is in terms of all the positions he has taken throughout his time in office. Republicans aren't the ONLY ones to have access to 527s.

Democrats need to respond but go after Bush and McCain.

[LBM]

Obama needs to counter their claims that he's soft on crime and the war. It's better to build himself up and make his own identity rather than letting them make it. They already are painting him as the most liberal senator with lots of liberal associations and liberal policies. He's been pushed to the left and he needs to pull himself back. If his huge ad spending and vigorous campaigning doesn't get within a single digit win in PA, he's going to have problems with all this.

[harriscrl3]

Obama is not soft on Crime he is just respective of the constution you know that document that the GOP thinks they can suspend when it suits their purpose.

Carol

[HowietheScreamer]

You forgot the "I hate him MORE than I hate Johnny McCain".

Dems need a 527 that attacks Johnny from the RIGHT. Split the wing nuts from him, and he'll NEVER win. Wouldn't be hard, he's not well liked by the far right.

[BeyondKen]

Pretty soon they'll be making anonymous phone calls asking if voters would be more or less likely to vote for Sen. Obama if they knew he had fathered a black child.

[wndrwrthg]

It is worse than that. He actually married a black woman.

[Americanium]

These people think they have a monopoly on the media. They no longer do.

Just know that your ad will be dealt with swiftly and with more examples that will resonate with Americans who are suffering at the hands of corporate gangs.

We fear no fly by night operations. This is the 21st Century!! Bring it on!!

[Banghouse]

I second that!

[dax49]

yet another republican hate-based initiative

[RThM]

Stop blaming everything on the Republicans. They've been hired by Hillary Clinton's campaign to counter Obama's message of hope and honesty. They were recommended to her by Sciafe.

[HowietheScreamer]

Pssst... dude, Hillary IS a Repubic.

[Gary47]

Calling all Obamabots. It's time to wake up from the echo chamber. The repubs are bringing out the manipulation, the fear-mongering, the race-baiting - and it's only the beginning. Don't count on the American people to ignore this. It's going to take you, all of you, organized and passionate, fighting back and creatively attacking, every day, from now until the election. Take your Hillary-hating, drive it up several notches and go after McCain, relentlessly.

[Genna]

Obamabots?
Whatever Gary.

This primary has been interesting for me because I was not old enough to remember the 1968 election convention or the arguments in 1980.

I didn't know that Democrats went for the jugular like Hillary and Barack supporters. I thought we all were too restrained with Al Gore, John Kerry, and Bill Clinton. Now, I know Democrats are street fighters, name callers and do not use arm chair restraints. Now I know that we will actually call out "manipulation, the fear-mongering, the race-baiting" even when it is within our own party.

If you think any of us, Hillary and Barack supporters are going to let these suckers come out of right field and start denigrating people just because the down scale voter might respond! You have another thing coming.

These guys have had 8 years to do something about crime. WHAT HAPPENED! I would think we could question them like we questioned the ABC news in regards to that lop-sided debate.

A movement. 20K comments about a debate in less than 3 days. Republicans have not necessarily had to counteract that type of underlying support. Republicans joined the Ji