Negative Campaigning and Attacks

With yet another election upon us, I wanted to take a second to talk about negative campaigning.

In the 2008 presidential election, my mom said that one of the reasons that she didn't like either McCain or Obama was because they both used negative campaigning against their opponents. I was never clear on what she meant, and she was never able to articulate it beyond a “feeling” that Obama was going negative.

I think, in reviewing campaign ads and such, that I've figured out what she's interpreting as negative.

Obama did run ads saying that John McCain wanted to keep us in Iraq for a hundred years. He also ran ads saying that McCain was endorsed by Bush and voted with Bush 80% of the time.

These are not negative, although someone who dislikes Bush like my mom does would probably view them as such. These are simply making McCain run on his record.

When McCain called Obama a socialist, or questioned his birth in Hawaii... THIS is negative advertising.

Personally, I like an ad that's being run locally by one of our democratic senators seeking reelection. She's using a largely unedited piece from Faux News of all places, to show that her opponent takes money from lobbyists and was called (I think it was) the “Bail-out king” during the Bush bail-outs. Again, not negative advertising, just using his own honest record against him.

I'm also hearing a lot of noise from the right about how the media is “smearing” Christine O'Donnell, making her look stupid. You know how they're doing this? BY USING HER OWN WORDS. If you said it on the record then yes, it's going to come back to haunt you. If you say that masturbation equals adultery, but admit to “dabbling” in Satanism, then yes, that can be held against you. If you are campaigning for high office in a country that already has a SERIOUS science deficit, and are on the record saying that if evolution is true, you can't figure out why MONKEYS AREN'T STILL EVOLVING INTO HUMANS, that can be held against you.

(For the record... monkeys NEVER evolved “into” humans. Humans and monkeys share common ancestors. Also, you cannot observe this type of evolution. It takes at least thousands of years. We can observe the evolution of certain types of plants, viruses and animals because they have a much shorter life span than human beings, so we can see generations of these things. Including, but not limited to, the repeated evolution of the flu virus so that it can continue kicking our asses.)

Also, I just finished watching last week's episode of Bill Maher. Usually, he tries to have one liberal, one conservative, and one moderate. For some reason, last week he had one liberal and two conservatives. They repeatedly attacked the health care initiative and several other things, and he just sat there and took it like a bullied little girl, except for the occasional “that must be bullshit”. All that I can figure is that he must be sick or something because he's usually a fighter. So, for the record, let me fight back on his behalf.

To begin with, several weeks ago, he agreed to stop using the term “tea-baggers” and started using the more respectful “members of the tea party movement” or “tea partiers”. And yet, he just sat there while the conservatives referred to the health care initiative as “Obamacare”, without demanding the same respect.

Also, one of the conservatives brought up the case of one town hall meeting where a right-winger was physically assaulted. You know what? There are bad apples in every group. What about the video that shows a guy with MS in a wheelchair who supported the health care bill getting the shit kicked out of him by a bunch of right-wingers?

They also kept talking about supporters of the health care bill “shutting down” debate about the health care initiative. What about the right-wingers who CONSISTANTLY shut down town hall meetings by insisting on talking about non-existent “death panels”? Or by accusing Barney Frank and Obama of supporting “nazi” policies? I'm not going to say that it DIDN'T happen, only that this is a little like the pot calling the kettle a pot.

They also fell back on Faux news polls that show that seventy percent of “Americans” oppose health care. Funny how, when they were confronted with polls that showed that seventy percent of “Americans” opposed the mess in Iraq, their comment was that “polls don't matter”. Isn't it funny that when there's a republican president polls don't matter, but when there's a democratic president they suddenly do?

Peace.

Rev. Randal