Ignoring all signs that their negative campaign against Barack Obama is backfiring, John McCain and the Republican Party continue to try to label their opponent as a terrorist by using robocalls in swing states like Virginia, Maine, Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina. There is also a direct mail piece from the Republican Party in Virginia that links Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden.
The robocall accuses Obama of working closely with a domestic terrorist, “Hello. I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayres, whose organization bombed the U.S. capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country.”
While the back envelope of the Virginia GOP’s direct mail piece sends this message:
TPM reported on two other robocalls in Virginia that tried to drum up fear about Obama. One of them insinuated that Obama isn’t who we think he is, “Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats aren’t who you think they are. They say they want to keep us safe, but Barack Obama said the threat we face now from terrorism is nowhere near as dire as it was in the end of the Cold War. And Congressional Democrats now want to give civil rights to terrorists.”
It is a sign of McCain’s standing that they aren’t using these dirty tactics in blue states or swing states. His campaign has fallen so far behind that he has to smear Obama in red states that George W. Bush carried in 2004. McCain is playing dirty in Florida, Virginia, Missouri, and North Carolina. Bush carried three of these four states by wide margins four years ago. Republicans don’t get it. The same campaign that worked in 2000 and 2004 won’t work this year. Terrorism is no longer the top issue on the minds of voters.
These smears are hurting the Republican Party. Voters don’t want to hear them. They don’t care about Bill Ayers. They care about the economy. Each of these attacks pushes more Independents and some Republicans away from McCain, and the backlash from these tactics can lead to a rout on Election Day. It looks like the Republican plan for the final phase of these campaign is to sling enough mud and hope something sticks. This a sad, deplorable, last gasp strategy from McCain and the GOP.
One man’s “smear” is another’s truth.
Obama worked side-by-side with Ayers at two Chicago foundations for a decade, including for months AFTER (on of all days 9/11) Ayers’s interview with the NY Times was published, in which Ayers admitted his complicity in bombing some of the same targets as te 9/11 terrorists, said he was not sorry, and said he only regretted he had not done more.
What is wrong with this picture?
OK, lets get the facts straight.
Working “side by side”, as you called it, meant serving on the board of two separate foundations. Go to work and look at the people next to you. Do you want your life judge by the actions of the people you work with? Look at what the actual boards were. One was a foundation to improve education in Chicago and one was a foundation to fight poverty.
The education foundation, The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, was funded by the Annenberg foundation, founded by Walter Annenberg, a prominent republican, former ambassador to the UK under Nixon and close friend of the Reagan’s.
If you were a young politician keen on those causes, would you turn down the opportunity to serve your city because one of the members on the board has a criminal history. We’re not talking assisting the guy to build bombs, we’re talking working in the same building as the guy so you can do something good for your community.
The New York Times has made it clear that there was no close relationship between Ayers and Obama. The McCain Palin campaign cleverly avoid calling it that. They say, as you did, that he worked “side by side”, but then again, Obama worked side by side with corrupt government officials and supporters of torture.
Of course he did.
He served on the US Senate.
Mr. “Anonymous,”
By the way, how convenient for you to remain anonymous. Real brave move, too. You must be taking lessons from McCain’s robocalls.
So, one man’s smear is another’s truth. Well then, YOU’RE AN IDIOT, A MORON. Your mom tells everyone that you ate paint chips when you were young.
Smear?
No. It’s truth.
What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing. Except it’s missing quite a few pieces of lead-laden paint.
Well I could list many things that are WRONG with this picture. Let me ask this though, if it is such a “truth” why only send this crap to Red states? This type of campaigning will only incite someone who may already be mentally ill into doing something that they feel is right and is essentially doing America a favor. Oh, very similar to what Ayers thought was right 40 years ago. Do you really combat one brand of terror with your own brand of terror?
“paint Chips” thats classic LOL.
There was a time when I respected John McCain and would have voted for him. No more. I’ve been on boards and it was work. When the meeting was done I just wanted to go home, not pal around with the other board members. So Ayers and Obama were on the same board. So what?
What I want to know is what John McCain would do for those of us earning less than $100k, work hard, pay our taxes and generally get screwed by the “guvimnt”. I don’t know if Barack Obama will be able to deliver on all his promises but I know he will try. McCain never has had much sympathy for the middle class and never will.
Here’s another good piece on Bill Ayers:
http://stonecipher.typepad.com/the_stonecipher_report/2008/10/meet-bill-ayers.html
McCain, and Palin are just trying to let the people know the truth about Obama before it is too late. Wake up people and read the reports.
I must disagree with you. At the debate on Wednesday McCain told the American people that “I don’t care about some washed-up terrorist,” and “every time there’s been an out-of-bounds remark made by a Republican, no matter where they are, I have repudiated them.” On Thursday I and several thousands of other voters in Virginia were told something very different by McCain/Palin. I received one of those new “robocalls” paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 that tells voters who answer their phones that Barack “has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers” whose organization “killed Americans.” In the past, these “robocalls” — phone calls where a machine delivers the message over and over — have flown under the radar. The McCain campaign expects them to go largely unnoticed by the mainstream press, and I hope we can all drag their ugly tactics into the light. Then on Friday I received a mailing from McCain/Palin that was just as despicable. In the mailing in addition to mentioning Ayers and Wright, these idiots tried to convince me that Sen. Obama had somehow been involved with Osama Bin Laden. Now please tell me where is the honor that McCain says he has so much of?
During the primaries, I got a robocall. It went something like this: “Democrats, Republicans and Independents are all voting for John McCain. The Democratic party is not having a primary in Michigan. So, please join us and vote for John McCain”. While it is true that Obama was not on the ballot, Clinton and Edwards were, so we had a primary–sort of!
WHERE I HAVE READ IT