Tag: Swiftboating

Sen. Liddy Dole Trashes Her Reputation and Long Career By Releasing Slimiest Ad of 2008 Campaign

Jon Ponder

Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., the former presidential candidate who was one of the first Republican women to serve as a cabinet secretary — she was Reagan’s transportation secretary and Bush I’s labor secretary — has tossed her long and distinguished record of public service onto history’s ash heap by releasing what is, hands-down, the sleaziest ad of the 2008 campaign season against her opponent, state Sen. Kay Hagan:

“A leader of the Godless Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan’s honor,” the ad begins, showing some ominously blurred footage, ostensibly of the event in question. The ad then quotes the group’s Ellen Johnson making atheist claims on two cable news shows. Summing up, the spot asks: “Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras, took Godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?

And then an unidentified woman shouts, “There is no God!”

Ironically, Dole occupies the Senate seat once held by Jesse Helms, a pioneering purveyor of slimy advertising, and it’s that last line that gives Dole her permanent place in the campaign Hall of Shame beside him. Not only is the voice not identified, the video is edited so that casual viewers will assume it’s Hagan who is shouting.

It is not. Hagan is a Sunday School teacher and a Presbyterian Church elder.

[…]

Obama Wins the Editorial Endorsement Race

Trish

If the election were decided by numbers of endorsements from newspaper dailies, Barack Obama would win in a landslide. Editor & Publisher counts 194 papers casting editorial votes for Obama, including, as Jon noted, the Anchorage Daily News, while only 82 make the case for McCain.

The Roswell Daily Record, read by 11,700 New Mexicans as well as an undetermined number of UFO crew members, endorsed McCain

Obama’s lopsided margin, including most of the major papers that have decided so far, is in stark contrast to John Kerry barely edging George W. Bush in endorsements in 2004 by 213 to 205…

At least 38 papers have now switched to Obama from Bush in 2004, with just four flipping to McCain. The latest majors to flipflop to Obama: the papers in Providence and Fort Worth. In addition, several top papers that went for Bush in 2004 have now chosen not to endorse this year, the latest being the Indianapolis Star in key swing state Indiana.

If the list tallied circulation figures for those papers, the difference would be even starker. In Florida, the largest of the four papers endorsing McCain is the conservative Tampa Tribune, circulation 220,522. The others are more typical of the types of editors supporting the Republican: the Brandenton Herald, circ. 48,618; the Palatka Daily News, circ. 11,000; and the Cape Coral Daily Breeze, circ. 2,015.

The largest California paper to endorse McCain is the San Diego Union-Tribune, read by 288,669 San Diegans, many of whom presumably reside on the Navy base.

No North Carolina newspapers have yet sided with McCain.

McCain does pick up one daily with possibly universal appeal: the Roswell Daily Record is read by 11,700 New Mexicans, as well as an undetermined number of UFO crew members.

Alaska’s Biggest Newspaper Endorses Obama

Jon Ponder

The endorsement from the Anchorage Daily News skewers John McCain, goes easier on Sarah Palin:
“[McCain] declared that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong’ at 9 a.m. one day and by 11 a.m. was describing an economy in crisis … His behavior in this crisis — erratic is a kind description — shows him to be ill-equipped to lead the essential effort of reining in a runaway financial system and setting an anxious nation on course to economic recovery.”
– Anchorage Daily News

Gov. Palin’s nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency — but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.

Since his early acknowledgement that economic policy is not his strong suit, Sen. McCain has stumbled and fumbled badly in dealing with the accelerating crisis as it emerged. He declared that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” at 9 a.m. one day and by 11 a.m. was describing an economy in crisis. He is both a longtime advocate of less market regulation and a supporter of the huge taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailout. His behavior in this crisis — erratic is a kind description — shows him to be ill-equipped to lead the essential effort of reining in a runaway financial system and setting an anxious nation on course to economic recovery.

Sen. Obama warned regulators and the nation 19 months ago that the subprime lending crisis was a disaster in the making. Sen. McCain backed tighter rules for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but didn’t do much to advance that legislation. Of the two candidates, Sen. Obama better understands the mortgage meltdown’s root causes and has the judgment and intelligence to shape a solution, as well as the leadership to rally the country behind it. It is easy to look at Sen. Obama and see a return to the smart, bipartisan economic policies of the last Democratic administration in Washington, which left the country with the momentum of growth and a budget surplus that President George Bush has squandered.

On the most important issue of the day, Sen. Obama is a clear choice.

Perino: McCain Can Win Like Bush Did in 2000

Trish

We all know how George Bush “won” the presidency in 2000. His press secretary, however, doesn’t seem to. Dana Perino says McCain can win just like W did. Rut-roh.

If McCain “wins” like Bush did in 2000, he will be presiding over the next civil war

“The president is convinced that John McCain has still time to close up this race,” Perino told reporters on Air Force One. “He remembers when he was running in 2000 and how far he was down before the election, and he came back to win.”

No Dana. He came back to be awarded the presidency by the Supreme Court, despite that fact that he lost the popular vote. The numbers were 48.38 percent for Gore, 47.87 percent for Bush, and 2.74 percent for Nader.

If McCain thinks he can “win” like Bush did and then lead the country with Palin at his side and not preside over the next civil war, he needs to up his meds.

AP Calls Palin ‘Palling with Terrorists’ Attack ‘Racially Tinged’ – Obama Lobs Counter-Attack with Keating 5 Documentary

Jon Ponder

Over the weekend, GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin, the self-described attack dog in lipstick, began what she and McCain have referred to as “taking the gloves off” — which is apparently Republican-speak for “telling even bigger lies” — with an attack on Barack Obama’s superficial association with 1960s radical, William Ayers:
Obama was only eight years old when Ayers used violence to protest the war in Iraq, but when John McCain entangled himself in the Keating Five scandal he was 58.

“Our opponent … is 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.”

The Associated Press, which got a lot of press over the summer for the promotion of Ron Fournier, an apparent fellow traveler with Karl Rove, to head its DC bureau, released an analysis written by Douglass K. Daniel on Sunday that suggested that the Palin attack was “unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret.” Daniel’s rationale goes like this:

Palin’s words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee “palling around” with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn’t see their America?

In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers’ day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.

Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as “not like us” is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.

Sean Hannity has been beating this tired drum for months. There simply is no “there” there. (We published an overview of Obama’s dealings with Ayers in March.) Obama said this about Ayers in a Democratic debate:

[…]

Poll: Obama Is Tied with McCain in NC – Without Support of 20% of Tar Heel Dems

Jon Ponder

As an expatriated North Carolinian, this is both heartening and discouraging — in other words, normal for Tar Heel politics:
If Obama gained support of just 6% of these North Carolina Dems, he would be leading in current state polls.

In North Carolina, Public Policy has Obama pulling into a tie with McCain (they had McCain up 4 percent last week) while Rasmussen has McCain’s lead down to just 3 percent (they had McCain up 6 percent last month). Some figured that North Carolina was off the table once McCain picked Palin, but that is clearly not the case.

The Public Policy poll is the first one to show Obama tied in the state since April. Public Policy also has Bob Barr doing relatively well in North Carolina, getting 5percent of the vote. They are attributing Obama’s improvement in the state to economic concerns.

One major potential sign for concern for McCain is that both of these polls have Obama getting less than 80 percent of the Democratic vote. If he improves his support among Democrats by just 6 percent or so, he would be leading both of these polls. Obama has yet to lead in any North Carolina poll. This certainly explains why McCain is now shifting resources into North Carolina, as the state is very much in play.

A recent CNN poll suggested “that 40 percent of white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, including more than a third of white Democrats and independents. A small percentage of voters — 2.5 percent of those surveyed — said they may turn away from Obama because of his race.”

DVD Drop Designed to Spread Fear and Loathing, But Mainly Fear

Buck Banks

obsession.jpg
When I opened my Sunday Miami Herald two days ago, not just Sports Authority and CVS Pharmacy fliers fell out. An 8.5-by-10-inch piece of paper with a DVD affixed to it clunked to the floor. It was “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” a one-hour trailer for a two-hour “documentary.” It’s designed to scare the bejesus out of you and make you decide that John McCain is the only candidate that can save us from waves of Muslim terrorists.

The DVD sports a scary-looking jihadist and an image of the ruins of the World Trade Center with an American flag in the foreground. Of course the timing of the distribution — just a couple of days after the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks — was surely not accidental. But it makes it clear that this movie is not about the GOOD Muslims, it’s about the scary radical Islamists who hate you and want to kill you and your entire family.

Twenty-eight million copies of the DVD, which was first released in 2006 during the midterm elections, was distributed through 70 newspapers in battleground states over the past weekend, including Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada, Virginia and Ohio. The highest concentration was in Florida, where no less than 14 newspapers presented subscribers with the thing. And it was only distributed to subscribers because … people who subscribe to the newspaper are residents and therefore are likely voters, whereas people who buy newsstand copies of the Sunday paper just want the comics, right? It also was included in the Wall Street Journal, the World Jewish Digest and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

It is produced and distributed by the Clarion Fund, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that spends a lot of time telling anybody who will listen that it takes no money from the gubmint or special interest groups. It’s a shadowy group that does not list its principals or indeed any information about where its funding comes from.

The DVD is a very slick production, and if you were able to sit through the entire hour, it would no doubt indoctrinate you with the fear and loathing of Muslims that its creators intended. Boosting its credibility are interviews with such luminaries as Alan Dershowitz, who I would imagine had no idea how his interview would be used.

This is propaganda in its most blatant form, and it’s specifically designed to make you terrified of another terrorist attack by maniacal Muslims. It exploits the documentary genre perfectly, blending “facts” delivered in a dead-pan manner with creepy music and outrageous logic to create an atmosphere of lunatic fear. It is so psychologically effective, it’s scary, which is, I suppose, the point. Note that FOX News ran the thing in its entirety in 2006. ‘Nuff said.

If you want to watch it, go here.

Palin Admitted Smoking Pot

Jon Ponder

Not only was Sarah Palin, the darling of “values voters,” the mayor of the meth capitol of Alaska, during the 2006 governor’s race, she admitted that she has smoked pot:

Palin doesn’t support legalizing marijuana, worrying about the message it would send to her four kids. But when it comes to cracking down on drugs, she says methamphetamines are the greater threat and should have a higher priority.

Palin said she has smoked marijuana — remember, it was legal under state law, she said, even if illegal under U.S. law — but says she didn’t like it and doesn’t smoke it now.

“I can’t claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled.”

Clinton claimed he ate marijuana brownies in college.