First, some recent history. Unfortunately, a familiar pattern has emerged.
The Clinton campaign was afraid she’d lose, so they went negative in New Hampshire, and it worked. Then it was Wisonsin, where they went negative again.
It was much of the same in Ohio and Texas.
She ran a television ad suggesting that the youthful Obama could not be trusted if a world crisis forced the president from bed in the middle of the night. She questioned his ethics by repeatedly raising questions about his relationship with a disgraced supporter who, by the luck of the draw for Clinton, is the target of a federal corruption trial that began Monday in Chicago, where Obama lives.
And, highlighting a meeting between a top Obama aide and the Canadian government, she painted him as a typical, two-faced politician who told the voters one thing about his intention to change the North American Free Trade Agreement but with a wink and a nod assured a foreign government he would not follow through.
In Pennsylvania, she stepped it up a notch, flashing Osama Bin Laden on millions of television screens across the state. Here is another negative Pennsylvania spot she ran, featuring what appear to be bitter Pennsylvanians disgustedly explaining how not-bitter they are. Greg Sargent explains just how saturated with negative ads Pennsylvania was a week before the primary.
Now, Indiana, where she started on a relatively positive note.
The obvious implication here is that Barack Obama doesn’t know how to turn the economy around. But on the issue of the day, she is the one raising the eyebrows and criticism of many economists with a gas tax scam, while Obama has dismissed the McCain/Clinton proposal as a scheme.
The gun pictured here doesn’t even exist. And Apparently it depends on who she is talking to as well. Here she is in 2000, singing a different tune entirely during her Senate campaign.
We need to stand firm on behalf of sensible gun control legislation. We have to enact laws that will keep guns out of the hand of children and criminals and mentally unbalanced persons. Congress should have acted before our children started going back to school. I realize the NRA is a formidable political group; but I believe the American people are ready to come together as a nation and do whatever it takes to keep guns away from people who shouldn’t have them.
I’ll offer the rest without comment.
If Indiana voters are confused about what Barack Obama stands for, you won’t have to wonder why.
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Thanks for compiling all that. Voters are especially vulnerable to this because many — most? — don’t follow the campaign on TV, on the Web or in newspapers. The ads and commercials become their only source of (mis)information about the campaign.
Josh,
Thanks (again) for being thorough. I spent the week before the New Hampshire primary there with friends, and saw the same trends in the mailings.
Is it possible for a candidate in this modern era to sufficiently submerge his or her ego to announce a candidacy, state plainly his or her philosophy of governing, offer a platform on various issues, and adapt to new issues that emerge by sticking to principles outlined in that philosophy of governing? Come hell or high water or poor trend polls?
I have waited in vain for a candidate who says, “This is me and what I believe. This is me and what I will do.”
I suppose I am dreaming, and as vet of 20 years in the news biz, I ought to know better. But still, isn’t there someone out there who will not be induced by handlers to bob and weave with the winds of political expediency?
Tell me it’s possible, Josh. Please?
Dr. D,
The House of Representatives is the highest such a candidate (think Kucinich) could rise.
Russ: Good point. This is especially true given the fact that Indiana usually doesn’t get much of a say in the primary process. Five pieces of mail in two weeks, along with seeing a few commercials a dozen times each can go a long way.
Dr. D: That would be quite refreshing, but I don’t see it happening for the Presidency. I was going to say it was impossible for any federal office, but Russ makes a good point with Kucinich. I guess Russ Feinfold basically fits that mold, and Paul Wellstone probably did as well.