For Obama, The Latest News Is Not Good

John McCain's current ads and comments on Obama are false, ridiculous and beneath contempt. But they are working. The public is lapping up McCain's garbage. And Obama better do something to change that if he wants to be the next president.

McCain's success in taking the low road is reflected in the two big national tracking polls -- by Gallup and Rasmussen -- that canvass approximately 1,000 people every day and report a three-day moving average of results. Gallup's latest results show that, as of Friday, the race has become a dead heat, with Obama and McCain each with 44 per cent of the vote. Rasmussen's latest surveys show Obama ahead by a single point, 47 to 46. That means Obama has lost virtually the entire lead he gained on his trip abroad.

It was a lead gained from events like his speech in Berlin, which attracted a crowd of 200,000 and, more important, his visit to Iraq which ended with Prime Minister Maliki essentially agreeing with Obama's timetable to get all U.S. combat troops out by 2010 -- something McCain and Bush had found unthinkable. Obama's overseas triumphs were reflected in both tracking polls in their results from July 24-26. Gallup's poll of registered voters showed Obama ahead of McCain by 9 percentage points, 49 to 40. And Rasmussen's sample of likely voters, showed Obama ahead by 6 points, 49 to 43. Both results were beyond the polls' margin of error of plus or minus two points. Now that lead is all but gone. Gone because of a smear campaign.

In case you need reminding, McCain, the proprietor of the "Straight Talk Express," had promised something very different -- a civil campaign. Instead we're getting little but negatives, lies and distortions. John Heileman offers an excellent summary of the McCain's campaign's tactics in the current New York magazine:

First, its new slogan: "Country first," with its inverse insinuation that Obama puts something else (i.e., his own ambition) ahead of the nation. Second, McCain's accusation that Obama "would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign." Third, the McCain ad "Troops," which claims that Obama, while in Germany, "made time to go the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops--seems the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring cameras." And, finally, the ad "Celeb," with its intercut images of Obama in Berlin, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears.

That last is especially ridiculous. In recent days, Obama has met with such foreign leaders as France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Jordan's King Abdullah and half a dozen others. But McCain's ad associates him instead with Paris and Britney. And McCain's campaign is spending $140,000 a day continuing to run it.

After the changes in the polls, the next most disturbing thing for Obama's supporters is Rasmussen's finding that 19 per cent of white Democrats say they'll vote for McCain. That's just one of the latest pieces of evidence that race is a big, big factor in this election. Obama may have wished it otherwise. But he gave McCain an opening when he predicted that Republicans would try to scare people by reminding them he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." Obama's campaign has now acknowledged what it earlier denied, that the candidate was talking about race when he said that. Even before that acknowledgment, the McCain campaign accused Obama of playing "the race card." Others charge it is McCain who's playing that card. Not including Obama, who accuses McCain's campaign of cynicism but not racism. But Heileman sees racism in the McCain ad that accuses Obama of selfish motives in failing to visit wounded troops overseas. That ad:

... features footage of Obama sinking a three-pointer in Kuwait, despite the fact that the shot took place at a military base, which undermines the ad's argument. But the spot's deeper aim is to foster an unconscious simile: Obama as a blinged-up, camera-hungry, NBA shooting guard, Allen Iverson with a Harvard Law degree. Am I reaching? Consider this: Would the ad have featured footage of Obama on a golf course draining a hole-in-one? "No, it wouldn't," laughs a GOP media savant. "The racial angle is the first thing I thought of when I saw that ad. It fits into the celebrity stuff, too."

I'm not as sure as Heileman that the picture of Obama shooting a basket proves the McCain campaign's racism, but the story it tells is a lie. Furthermore, David Kiley, a senior correspondent for Business Week writes that, according to a Republican campaign strategist, McCain had "an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops" saying that Obama was using them "as campaign props. So no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch."

Obama has his work cut out for him. He must find a way to combat McCain's so far successful campaign of character assassination or risk losing the election. This is a year the Democrats should win everything, after eight years of the disasters Republicans have foisted on this country and the world. But remember what happened to John Kerry, a war hero who earned a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts, smeared and beaten by a candidate who used political pull to duck that war and then disappeared for a year instead of putting in his required reserve time; with a runningmate who got five deferments, the last one by hiding in his wife's bed and getting her pregnant. In politics as elsewhere in life, truth, justice and virtue too often don't triumph. Neither will Obama if he doesn't figure out how to combat McCain's gutter campaign.

Update: I've just learned that I'm among the victims of still another McCain lie: that Obama injected race into the campaign by predicting that Republicans would try to scare people by reminding them that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." In fact, that turns out to be a fact rather than a forecast. As Ben Smith reported in Politico on Aug. 1, a McCain ad back in June showed Obama's face replacing Ben Franklin's on a hundred dollar bill.

Comments

[RealCalGal]

You are SO right.

If the Obama campaign needs to stay above the fray, then the 527's will have to step in to draw the public's attention to McCain's history with the Keating Five, to McCain's flip-flop on global warming, Bush tax cuts, etc. Portray McCain as someone who would rather give up his long-held convictions than lose a race.

Someone who would insult his wife in public.

Someone who would blow his top at the drop of a hat.

Whatever. But they need to hit back. Hard and soon.

[krocklin]

A lot of the fault lies with the Media.

They play McCain's ads over and over again and it costs him notihing.
The media is giving him a leg up, arguing how "effective" his ads are, however much they distort the truth or dodge substantive issues.
A better Media would point out that untruths diguised and tolerated as "hardball politics" speak to the lack of character and sincerity of the McCain camp.
In this way they actually concede with a wink and shrug the overriding importance of "winning" over everything else.

[krocklin]

Mark Twain said a lie can travel half way around the world while the Truth is still putting on its trousers.

Obama has been putting on his trousers the entire campaign.

Could the nation really be full of enough rednecks, gun nuts, militarists, bigots and demagogues to actually elect McCain after two terms of Bush?

Will the Middle Class really continue to cheer on the Rich until they become even poorer?

I would not have thought it was possible until the 2000 election and everything that has transpired since.

[AstroJohnny]

There was a time that the thought processes of a lot of Americans could be described as ignorant. I have come to realize that self-perpetuated ignorance is in actuality stupidity. There are far too many people that have gone way past ignorant and now are eye deep in stupid. Anyone that would base their vote on these type of ads definitely falls into that catagory. If, by some horrible mistake, John McCain is elected president, America will get just what these people deserve.

[FirstShirt]

I have lost track of the number of HuffPo blogs railing against the McCain ads. And, thousands of posters have opined. These ads work. They get people talking about them and guess who they are not talking about? And, then the Obama folks have to waste their time responding, etc. Stupid ads. Outstanding impact.

[research]

agreed. Obama, you need to go on the offensive. Use the true. It's pretty offensive.

[hydenorhare]

bushlies
McCain's Paris/Britney ad is a close cousin of the attack ads the GOP successfully ran against Harold Ford in Tennessee. Looks like Karl Rove is somewhere behind the scenes stirring s**t, as usual.

Posted 05:21 PM on 08/04/2008

But ... Barry agrees with the Hilton ad .

"A-ndy W-arhol said we all get our 15 minutes of fame, I've already had an hour and a half. I mean, I'm so overexposed, I'm making P-aris H-ilton look like a recluse."

B O-bama 2/2004

[PierreBayle]

Political campaigns have never been about taking the high road. anti-Lincoln ads likened him to a monkey with long, gangly arms. Obama and McCain are no Lincoln...so, it's only going to get down and dirty. how fun.

[Aarky]

And remember the famous political cartoon of a woman with a baby in her arms chasing Grover Cleveland and the baby crys out,"Pa, Pa, wheres my Pa? It was a charge that he had fathered a child out of wedlock. He fessed up and actually won the election. After the election, another cartoon came out with the retort,"Gone to the White House, Ha Ha Ha".

[GravitonX]

Ignore the polls. Most of them are statistically flawed conjecture. The war is about turnout. Period.

In the military, we call this the situation on the ground.

[ESerafina42]

And what if all these people turn out, then see lines going around the block because, oh, I don't know, maybe the Democratic leaning districts magically only got one voting booth, or their names aren't on the rolls even though they've voted in the last ten elections.

And please don't talk about all those people with cell phones. We heard that four years ago, and they certainly didn't turn out en masse for Kerry like they were supposed to.

[reshas1]

Don't worry the Chicago political machine will find ways to "fix" the Democrats problems?? Just ask Acorn..

[lizr]

Well, Ker ry wasn't so inspirational as Ob ama either. He was picked by the losers, the DLC. Who hopefully have crawled back underneath the hole from whence they came, for good if we are lucky.

[FirstShirt]

Right, remember President Dukakis?

[santamonica39]

Wrong. There aren't enough progressives to turn out. Most people in this country are low-information voters who get their news from television and chain emails. Obama needs to start attacking McCain ruthlessly or he will lose.

[taitracee]

sigh, those silly ads, and these polls are both lies, If the american people are voting based on tabloid crap and not the REAL ISSUES then so be it, America deserves the disaster its going to become if McCain is elected.


READ BELOW LINK. ON THE REAL MCCAIN
http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/mccain.cfm?source=mccainrevealed

[isis]

HMcCain's ads sound childish. But if he wins at least I got a great education at our fine public schools and can probably immigrate as my degree is marketable.

[who38]

The word is emigrate. Hope your degree is in math.

[chronic]

Lawd hammercy!

[lizr]

LOL - thanks for that.

[thepoliticalcat]

Pardon me for disagreeing with you, Mr. Goodman, but I believe national polls give an inaccurate picture of the race. We don't have a national vote for president. We have a state-by-state vote, fifty states voting for electors who will choose the President. Therefore the statewide polls of each state are probably a more accurate reflection of the candidates' chances.

Please see this site for a more accurate picture:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

[leftyandproudofit]

Great point. National polls mean nothing if they don't also include what each candidate will win in electoral college votes. Disregard Gallup and Rasmussen. They're useless.

[THEhillbilly]

"...with Prime Minister Maliki essentially agreeing with Obama's timetable..."

That misconstruction was dismissed with much snickering. Try to keep up.

"He must find a way to combat McCain's so far successful campaign of character assassination or risk losing the election. "

The democrats' character assassination, e.g., your article and virtually every other post here, isn't the way he's looking for? Hint: No, it isn't something he's looking for, because it started at the same time. How have you managed to not notice that it's always that way?

Anyway, Obama's real problem is not character assassination. It's his "character suicide" (communist "father figure" Davis; hate-fueled anti-America "spiritual mentor" Wright; wannabe domestic terrorist pals Ayers and Dohrn; rabid supporter Pfleger; idiot "ludacris"; racketeer chum Rezko; Michele, who's not used to respecting the country and who said in effect, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need"; and whatever's going to surface next).

[cosmic]

did anyone hire a troll?

[smitallica]

Wrong.
Maliki DID agree with Obama. The righties tried to dismiss it, and were proven wrong. So maybe you should try to keep up.

Oh, also, another news flash: George Bush and now McC himself have both said a timetable (sorry, "horizon") is a good idea.

[RButler]

Obama supporters on this site who were willing to believe the worst about the Clintons are now upset that there are folks out there who are willing to believe the worst of the Obamas They are only behaving like Obama supporters after all. What goes around....­..........­.

[GravitonX]

The difference is that the worst about the Clintons was true. Calling Obama a terrorist is not.

[pleeezzze]

Grav....so how's that kind of posting working for you ?
It will not get help get "Him" elected.

[reshas1]

Dem's fighting Dem's

[lizr]

Give it up, get on the train or go support McCain. Too late for all this living in the past.

[genseric13]

The Dems thought this time around would be different for...what reason? Since, FDR, they have won 3 times, all 3 were southern, DLC type candidates; Johnson, Carter and Clinton. BO is the Kerry, Gore, Mondale mold. They always lose.

[archim1]

You forgot a couple of presidents. You might be able to fit Truman into this analysis, but it's hard to make JFK fit since he was from Massachusetts. And Gore doesn't fit the analysis either: he was a founder of the DLC and came from a Southern state. Plus, since Gore lost by a trivial margin in one state, it's impossible to look at any one factor and say that and only that made the difference.

[ESerafina42]

Al Gore WON, so he does fit your analysis. If all the votes had been counted in 2000, we wouldn't be in this mess.

[meanguy]

don't worry, they'll find a way to blame it all on hillary

[genseric13]

I haven't met one person in Virginia who is voting for Barry.

[archim1]

Nobody named Barry, John Boy, or any other diminutive is running, so that's probably why. But more important, this probably says more about where you live or who you hang around with than about the strength of the candidates. John Kerry lost big in Virginia last time, but he still got nearly a million and a half votes.

[lizr]

My friend just flew back from Hawaii to vote in his home state of VA. He has plenty of friends. They'll be voting for Ba rack, however, not Bar ry. Tr oll.