It seems to me that McCain’s main strategy at this point (besides trying to shore up his economic credentials by grandstanding in Washington and screwing up negotiations) is to smear Obama so much that one of two things happen:
1) If Obama gets angry and lashes back, McCain could win because few things are scarier than an angry black man. Plus, it undermines Obama’s change message.
2) The smears and lies (that even Karl Rove said go “too far”) make the casual observer disgusted with the political process once again and keep people from going to the polls on Nov 4th. That’s truly the best chance of victory Republicans could hope for… because as any savvy political observer knows, when less people vote, Republicans win.
So on that note, I like this recent Obama TV ad. It really exposes McCain’s tactics without being too outraged about it:
justin
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Justin, it may be helpful to point out and reference exactly what ads are false and in error so we can look at the original source material. It’s easy to use rich rhetorical quotes like the ad uses, but it’s another thing to discuss the actual ads themselves. A case could be made that the “more of the same” mantra of the Obama camp is a misleading statement. In politics, part of the game is to paint the other party with a label that sticks regardless of how accurate that label is. I presume the sole ad you are talking about is the supposed sex education bill in Illinois. I’ll look into that and re-comment. Are there other ads? I haven’t heard of any. Of course I don’t have TV.
For the record, here is the voter turnout rate for the 12 general elections since 1960:
1960: 63.1 % – Kennedy – Democrat (Highest)(Closest popular vote election)(1)
1964: 61.9 % – Johnson – Democrat (2)
1968: 60.8 % – Nixon – Republican (3)
1972: 55.2 % – Nixon – Republican (5)
1976: 53.6 % – Carter – Democrat (7)
1980: 52.6 % – Reagan – Republican (9)
1984: 53.1 % – Reagan – Republican (8)
1988: 50.1% – Bush – Republican (11)
1992: 55.1 % – Clinton – Democrat (Perot won 19% of popular vote) (6)
1996: 49.1 % – Clinton – Democrat (Lowest) (12)
2000: 51.3 % – Bush – Republican (10) (Closest Electoral Election, 1876 and 1800 were closer)
2004: 55.3 % – Bush – Republican (4)
The rank order of these 12 elections from highest to lowest is…
D, D, R, R, R, D, D, R, R, R, R, D
So…
The democratic nominee has won the presidency during the highest and lowest voter turnouts (Kennedy 1960, Clinton 1996).
The highest voter turnout (Kennedy 1960) was also the closest popular election in history (less than 150,000 votes, or 0.1% of the turnout).
The election that ranks 10th of 12 in terms of voter turnout was the 2000 election. This election was the third time in history where the candidate that won the popular vote (Gore) did not win the presidency (the first was 1824 and the second was 1876). Interestingly, the election of 1876 is still considered by many to be the most controversial.
The 2000 election was the third closest electoral election of all time. In 1800, the election resulted in an electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes beat Samuel Tilden by 1 electoral vote, 185/184.
Bottom line – I don’t know that these results can conclusively indicate a correlation between voter turnout and the party nominee that wins the general election.
McCain has voted with Bush 91% of the time. That’s more of the same in my book. His Foreign Policy is essentially the same. He wants the same tax cuts, the same deregulation, his VP choice has the same tendency to let religion dictate policy… the list goes on and on. It’s a mantra, for sure… but a mantra that can be backed up by facts, my friend. McCain trying to paint himself as a reformer is also exactly the same thing that Bush did in 2000… and look what we got! Puhleeeze.
As for the actual ads, here are a few:
The main one about Sex Education, which has been totally debunked:
I couldn’t find the original McCain ad, but this is a video in the same vain, trying to falsely say that Obama was referring to Palin with his lipstick comment:
Some other objectionable ads:
and he defends them!
Crap. The videos didn’t show up.
FYI, don’t try to embed videos into comments. I guess it doesn’t work!
If Republicans don’t mind everyone voting, why are they getting so upset about some bad names on ACORN’s voter registration drive forms? It’s because they know, in this election at least, that new, young and ethnic voters like ACORN is targeting are not going to help them win the election. They love to register more Christians but not black people. Just look at what they did in Ohio in 2004.