Smear campaign against Obama
A smear campaign is intended to tarnish the image of an individual or political figure. Smear campaigns in the United States are as old as the republic. In the 18th and 19th centuries, political parties did not care to buy advertising per se, because they were owners of the newspapers. Political parties used to publish their own house journals, in which they dug up or invented dirt about the other side. Parties also circulated pamphlets attacking opponents.
During the 1828 presidential campaign, Andrew Jackson had to challenge the press attacks accusing him of murder and cannibalism. In 1860, Democratic newspapers and pamphlets described Abraham Lincoln as "stupid and an ape."
As newspapers evolved into more dispassionate chronicles, the tone of the campaigns improved. With the advent of TV in the mid 20th century, negative commercials have become an important part of political dialogue.
The first televised attack ads appeared in 1952, when the battle between the Republican nominee Dwight Eisenhower and Democratic challenger Adlai Stevenson began.
One Democratic spot featured an animation of a well-built, two-headed Republican. The message was that Eisenhower said one thing to the public and another to Republican fat cats.
The next few years also featured negative commercials but, according to experts, the art truly came into its own in 1964. That year, the battle between President Lyndon Johnson and Democratic Barry Goldwater took place. Lyndon Johnson unleashed the infamous "daisy spot" against Barry Goldwater.
Many claim that that was the most powerful commercial attack of all time. The "daisy" ad opened with a child plucking petals from a flower; then it cut, shockingly, to a nuclear fireball. It meant that Barry Goldwater could not be trusted with America's nuclear arsenal. Negative ads work, or backfire on occasion, depending on the mood of the voters.
In 1988, the Willie Horton ad was another of the type. The commercial compared George H.W. Bush's positions on crime with that of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.
Some negative ads project issues. Vanderbilt University's teacher John Geer found that negative ads are often accurate and even substantive in nature. He found that 72 percent of the claims in negative ads addressed specific policy issues, compared to 49 percent for image ads.
Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama has been facing serious criticism from the Republican nominee Senator John McCain, his surrogates and some columnists, and a "swift boat" type campaign, which are probably damaging Obama's image in the eyes of voters. Negative ads are designed to create fear or false impressions, and are deemed to be cheap shots.
McCain deviated from his promise to run a high-minded campaign when his campaign team released ad in an effort to attract the young voters. He has now decided to take the low road.
McCain did fight against Obama, when Obama was seemingly compared with pop icons Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. The 30-second ad focuses on Senator Obama, saying he's the biggest celebrity in the world, and screen shifts to shots of two pop icons.
It was possibly the worst and most loathsome ad ever seen by Americans. The New York Times described this negative ad as Karl Rove's brand of politics. Karl Rove was the mastermind in conducting the election campaign of George W. Bush in 2001 and 2004, and is now facing subpoena by the Congress.
When Obama was on vacation this week in Hawaii, where he spent much of his childhood days, McCain released three new attack ads on August 8. This time Obama was portrayed as light-weight celebrity intent on raising taxes across the board.
Obama's campaign spokesman described the ad "as a lie and part of old, tired politics of a party in Washington that has run out of ideas and run out of steam." The Republican Party's National Committee mocked Obama with a Hawaii Travel guide, noting the elite prep school he attended on scholarship and highlighting a Chevron station selling gasoline for $ 4.78 a gallon.
Immediately, the Obama campaign team countered by airing a radio advertisement in Ohio, taking McCain to task over the fact that his campaign manager lobbied for German freight-shipping company, DHL, which laid off 8,000 Ohioans and moving its operation to Kentucky.
Obama struck back with the same coin when an ad called "embrace" showed McCain hugging President Bush, and features six images of the Republican with the unpopular president. It used the word "old" twice while showing images of 71 years old McCain.
The tragedy of the presidential campaign in the United States is that the wife of a candidate is being thoroughly scrutinised by the news media. Now Michelle Obama, who is a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, is also facing criticism.
She is being portrayed as an angry woman who resents white people, hates America, and may even have terrorist sympathies. Fox News anchor E.D. Hill described her playful fist bump with Barack Obama as "a terrorist fist jab."
At least three anti-Obama books, which portray Obama as unpatriotic and inexperienced, have come to my notice. David Freddoso published a book titled The case against Barack Obama, and traced links between Obama and former "terrorist" Bill Ayers, indicted developer Tony Rezko, and corrupt Chicago Mayor Daley, and his association with racist priest Jeremiah Wright and through him with Farrah Khan who was the leader of nation of Islam. This book, incidentally, was published by the same group that brought out Unfit for command: Swift boat veterans speak out against John Kerry (who was presidential candidate in 2004). The other books were Obama's spiritual journey and Jerome Corsi's Obama hopes to repeat anti-Kerry feat.
Poll conducted by Rasmussen indicate that 41 percent think McCain has run negative ads while 17 percent hold Obama responsible for negative ads. Of that group, 44 percent said the ads made them more likely to vote for Obama while 24 percent said the same for McCain. Another 24 percent opined that ads have had no impact.
McCain possibly has good reason to fear that the election could be decided on issues because general voters have experienced Republican's misrule and view President Bush as a bumbling failure.
While presenting himself as an independent man of honour of the Vietnam war McCain has flip-flopped on nearly every critical issues of concern, and shares President Bush's position on Iraq, oil drilling, economic situation, abortion, and taxes.
The possibility of winning the presidential election is bright for Obama if he can convince voters that McCain embraces America's most unpopular president, who does not have basic knowledge of the economy of the country and has pushed the country to the brink of collapse morally, politically and economically.
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