Senator Obama’s Campaign of Negativity While Wearing a Halo

New York Times:

The McCain campaign’s recent angry tone and sharply personal attacks on Senator Barack Obama appear to have backfired and tarnished Senator John McCain more than their intended target, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll has found.

After several weeks in which the McCain campaign unleashed a series of strong political attacks on Mr. Obama, trying to tie him to a former 1960s radical, among other things, the poll found that more voters see Mr. McCain as waging a negative campaign than Mr. Obama. Six in 10 voters surveyed said that Mr. McCain had spent more time attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president; by about the same number, voters said Mr. Obama was spending more of his time explaining than attacking.

2/3rds of McCain’s speeches on the campaign trail probably deals with “the issues”, while a third is devoted to talking about his opponent. Rather than report on the “boring 2/3rds”, the media in their thirst for the sensational want to talk about the other third. McCain’s conservative base, certainly, want the attacks; but they see them as positive issues of concern while the media wants to portray them as “negative smears”.

3rd debate:

MCCAIN: And the fact is, it’s gotten pretty tough. And I regret some of the negative aspects of both campaigns. But the fact is that it has taken many turns which I think are unacceptable.

One of them happened just the other day, when a man I admire and respect — I’ve written about him — Congressman John Lewis, an American hero, made allegations that Sarah Palin and I were somehow associated with the worst chapter in American history, segregation, deaths of children in church bombings, George Wallace. That, to me, was so hurtful.

And, Senator Obama, you didn’t repudiate those remarks. Every time there’s been an out-of-bounds remark made by a Republican, no matter where they are, I have repudiated them. I hope that Senator Obama will repudiate those remarks that were made by Congressman John Lewis, very unfair and totally inappropriate.

So I want to tell you, we will run a truthful campaign. This is a tough campaign. And it’s a matter of fact that Senator Obama has spent more money on negative ads than any political campaign in history. And I can prove it. And, Senator Obama, when he said — and he signed a piece of paper that said he would take public financing for his campaign if I did — that was back when he was a long-shot candidate — you didn’t keep your word.

And when you looked into the camera in a debate with Senator Clinton and said, “I will sit down and negotiate with John McCain about public financing before I make a decision,” you didn’t tell the American people the truth because you didn’t.

And that’s — that’s — that’s an unfortunate part. Now we have the highest spending by Senator Obama’s campaign than any time since Watergate.

SCHIEFFER: Time’s up. All right.

OBAMA: Well, look, you know, I think that we expect presidential campaigns to be tough. I think that, if you look at the record and the impressions of the American people — Bob, your network just did a poll, showing that two-thirds of the American people think that Senator McCain is running a negative campaign versus one-third of mine.

I don’t believe the record jives with the impression; an impression fueled by a hungry, sensationalist-driven, in-the-tank-for-Obama media. 2/3rds of the American people think McCain’s running a negative campaign, because the mainstream media has shaped the narrative.

The media has created a false impression, the same way they did during Katrina in which hysteria and sensationalism made them over-exaggerate reports of murders and mayhem that had no basis in actual facts.

Freedom Eden was at the Waukesha rally:

I didn’t witness any violent or inappropriate behavior at the event. I didn’t hear anyone shout, “Kill him!”

I didn’t see anything remotely like what the mainstream media have been reporting.

Gov. Palin didn’t whip the crowd into some racist frenzy. The people love her.

The event was very family-friendly. There were people of all ages, from infants to the elderly. The crowd was NOT an ugly mob ready to riot.

Since then, Freedom Eden has made several more posts repudiating the MSM distortions, including bringing up points about the debate last night, that I’m doing here.

And 100 percent, John, of your ads — 100 percent of them have been negative.

MCCAIN: It’s not true.

OBAMA: It absolutely is true.

Yup, a vicious 100% assault; factcheck, in aisle 10, please:

Politifact.com:

Obama appears to be cherry-picking the ads run during a single week — from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4 — during which the Wisconsin Advertising Project found “nearly all” of McCain’s ads were negative. That week, they found that 34 percent of Obama’s ads were negative.

But McCain has aired many, many ads that were not negative. If you look at a report from the same organization on Sept. 17, they found that in the week after the conventions, for example, Obama aired a higher percentage of negative ads than did McCain (76 percent to 56 percent).

In all, the Wisconsin Advertising Project has found that 73 percent of McCain’s ads have been negative, to date. That’s far short of 100 percent. (It also found 61 percent of Obama’s ads have been negative.)

That’s up for both parties from the 2004 election, when 64 percent of George Bush’s ads were negative, compared to 34 percent of John Kerry’s.

So Obama might be right for one week, but he is way off for the overall campaign, when McCain’s negative ads accounted for 73 percent. That’s so far off that we find it Pants on Fire wrong.

Mr. Tracey said, Mr. McCain’s most prominent single ad in the early part of September was a positive spot touting himself and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, as mavericks, while Mr. Obama’s most prominent ad linked Mr. McCain to President Bush.

The notion, though, that because we’re not doing town hall meetings that justifies some of the ads that have been going up, not just from your own campaign directly, John, but 527s and other organizations that make some pretty tough accusations, well, I don’t mind being attacked for the next three weeks.

I don’t mind Senator Obama being attacked, either. Truth matters. Character and judgment matter. Those are part of the issues. If he has been misrepresenting who he is (far left socialist) to the American public in order to win an election, that’s an issue. Nothing in his history points to his rhetoric on bipartisanship.

By mid-September, by the way, it was Obama’s campaign that ran more negative ads than McCain: Obama, by 77%, and McCain at 56%

Thus far, Senator Obama has outspent Senator McCain on campaign ads, and that’s likely to be the case up through to the end of the election.

Not only this, but look at all the Obama lawyers and reporters who descended upon Alaska to dig up any possible dirt they could find on Governor Palin.

And then look at the mountain of lies and smears of the most vitriolic, hateful kind that they’ve heaped upon her, with latenight comedians and media talking heads doing to her what they’ve done to George Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Gerald Ford.

MCCAIN: Every other ad — ever other ad was an attack ad on my health care plan. And any objective observer has said it’s not true. You’re running ads right now that say that I oppose federal funding for stem cell research. I don’t.

You’re running ads that misportray completely my position on immigration. So the fact is that Senator Obama is spending unprecedented — unprecedented in the history of American politics, going back to the beginning, amounts of money in negative attack ads on me.

Like running his campaign against 8 years of President Bush, Senator Obama also tried to link Senator McCain- who has been a thorn in the side of conservatives on the issue of immigration reform- to Rush Limbaugh’s “anti-immigration” anti-ILLEGAL-immigration stance:

“They want us to forget the insults we’ve put up with, the intolerance,” the television ad’s announcer says in Spanish as a picture of Rush Limbaugh appears onscreen with quotes of him saying, “Mexicans are stupid and unqualified” and “Shut your mouth or get out.”

“They made us feel marginalized in a country we love so much,” the ad continues. “John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote and another, even worse, that continues the failed policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families.”

The companion radio ad uses the same script as above and then continues:

“Don’t forget that John McCain abandoned us rather than confront the leaders of the Republican Party. Many of us were born here, and others came to work and achieve a better life for their families — not to commit crimes or drain the system like many of John McCain’s friends claim. Let’s not be fooled by political tricks from John McCain and the Republicans. Vote so they respect us. Vote for a change.”

MCCAIN: But again, I did not hear a repudiation of Congressman…

OBAMA: I mean, look, if we want to talk about Congressman Lewis, who is an American hero, he, unprompted by my campaign, without my campaign’s awareness, made a statement that he was troubled with what he was hearing at some of the rallies that your running mate was holding, in which all the Republican reports indicated were shouting, when my name came up, things like “terrorist” and “kill him,” and that you’re running mate didn’t mention, didn’t stop, didn’t say “Hold on a second, that’s kind of out of line.”

The only “kill him” charge that I could find, seems to occur after a mentioning of Bill Ayers. Even the Secret Service, who were at the rally, did not hear the shouts and launched their investigation based upon MEDIA REPORTS:

Wiley says the Secret Service did not begin looking into the matter until press reports, namely Dana Milbank’s article in the Washington Post, surfaced today, because no agents at the event heard anything.

“The Secret Service did not hear any threatening statements directed at targets under its protection and no threatening statements were reported to us by law enforcement or citizens at the event,” Wiley told Radar. Also unclear: whether the remark was directed at Obama or Ayers if the words were actually “kill” and “him.”

The Secret Service has since concluded that the allegation is unfounded:

SCRANTON – The agent in charge of the Secret Service field office in Scranton said allegations that someone yelled “kill him” when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned during Tuesday’s Sarah Palin rally are unfounded.

The Scranton Times-Tribune first reported the alleged incident on its Web site Tuesday and then again in its print edition Wednesday. The first story, written by reporter David Singleton, appeared with allegations that while congressional candidate Chris Hackett was addressing the crowd and mentioned Obama’s name a man in the audience shouted “kill him.”

News organizations including ABC, The Associated Press, The Washington Monthly and MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann reported the claim, with most attributing the allegations to the Times-Tribune story.

Agent Bill Slavoski said he was in the audience, along with an undisclosed number of additional secret service agents and other law enforcement officers and not one heard the comment.

“I was baffled,” he said after reading the report in Wednesday’s Times-Tribune.

He said the agency conducted an investigation Wednesday, after seeing the story, and could not find one person to corroborate the allegation other than Singleton.

Slavoski said more than 20 non-security agents were interviewed Wednesday, from news media to ordinary citizens in attendance at the rally for the Republican vice presidential candidate held at the Riverfront Sports Complex. He said Singleton was the only one to say he heard someone yell “kill him.”

“We have yet to find someone to back up the story,” Slavoski said. “We had people all over and we have yet to find anyone who said they heard it.”

Hackett said he did not hear the remark.

Slavoski said Singleton was interviewed Wednesday and stood by his story but couldn’t give a description of the man because he didn’t see him he only heard him.

When contacted Wednesday afternoon, Singleton referred questions to Times-Tribune Metro Editor Jeff Sonderman. Sonderman said, “We stand by the story. The facts reported are true and that’s really all there is.”

Slavoski said the agents take such threats or comments seriously and immediately opened an investigation but after due diligence “as far as we’re concerned it’s closed unless someone comes forward.” He urged anyone with knowledge of the alleged incident to call him at 346-5781. “We’ll run at all leads,” he said.

This is how media myths run wild and irresponsibly. And like a game of “telephone”, each news organization cites from each other, leading back to Huffington Post, until finally in the garbled mouths of moonbat “journalists” like Keith Olbermann and Frank Rich, it morphs and distorts into the message “kill Obama!”

And I think Congressman Lewis’ point was that we have to be careful about how we deal with our supporters.

Now…

Supporters like Ayers? Wright? Castro? Hamas? Kim Jong-Il?