Smart bombs
The surge in sleaze
“I just have to rely on the good judgment of the voters not to buy into these negative attack ads. Sooner or later, people are going to figure out if all you run is negative attack ads, you don’t have much of a vision for the future or you’re not ready to articulate it.”
Barack Obama in 2008? No, it’s John McCain in 2000. That was the year when George W. Bush’s operatives reacted to a loss in the New Hampshire primary with underhanded insinuations against McCain in the South Carolina contest.
That dark-skinned girl the McCains “adopted” from Bangladesh? Hmm. That time he spent as a prisoner of war? Maybe he’s unbalanced. His wife? She’s a pill popper.
Fast forward eight years, and McCain has hired a political operative named Tucker Eskew, who directed Bush’s smears in South Carolina. So, I guess he will meet with the enemy. He’ll even put ’em on the payroll.
Amazingly, after enduring those vicious attacks, Cindy McCain stepped to the microphone on Tuesday and said that Obama is waging “the dirtiest campaign in America history.”
Here’s a question from a telephone push-poll run by Bush operatives in 2000:
“Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain … if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?”
Worse than that, Cindy?
Guilt by association. Because he couldn’t connect on the issues, McCain has unleashed an attack that Obama consorted with a domestic terrorist. If putting on Ayers doesn’t work, then expect the Wright stuff.
With that in mind, here’s an ad Obama could run:
Title: “John McCain meets Barack HUSSEIN Obama”.
(Dissolve to slow motion footage of McCain and Obama walking toward each other on the debate stage. Freeze it as they smile and shake hands.)
Ominous voiceover: “Why does John McCain pal around with terrorist sympathizers?”
Branded. The Spokane County Republican Party has disavowed Chris Bowen, who is running for the state Legislature in the 3rd District. Bowen has been fined by the Public Disclosure Commission for not filing paperwork. He said he sent it and won’t send it again. So there.
“We’re not considering him a Republican,” said GOP county Chairman Curt Fackler, who didn’t consider himself a Republican during his unsuccessful bid for the insurance commissioner post. No, he figured he had a better chance of winning as an Independent.
It’s too late for Bowen.