ericcoleman | I've been staying out of this

Ah, here we go. This refers back to Obama's they're going to try to scare you rhetoric.

I'm of the opinion that accusing someone of being racist nowadays is right there with accusing them of being a terrorist, certainly in terms of trying to get a segment of the population to hate them. No, Obama didn't say it directly. Yes, he did send that message in the eyes of a mainstream reporter.

I saw that interview. So a couple of questions. Have they done what he said they would do? Was he right?

Let me answer. Yes they have, yes he was.

How is it a bad thing? I think he stated it plainly. They are going to try to make you afraid of his Muslim name, and his black skin. Was it the truth? The Republican Party has done both, over and over. How is it a bad thing that he called them out on it? It had already started when he gave that interview. This is the real Straight Talk Express. We're so used to politicians spewing carefully written talking points that when one of the actually tells us the cold hard truth, we don't know what to do. He told the cold, hard truth.

There may be people trying to make you afraid of Obama's Muslim name and black skin, but -- as nearly as I can tell -- it isn't the McCain campaign or the Republican party. They are trying to make people understand that what Obama is saying doesn't have a lot of congruence with his substantially more liberal voting record and history which I do believe is fair game.

When WGN Radio's Milt Rosenberg had people on the air who were critical of Obama, Obama's campaign organization twice sent out e-mails to supporters to have the station call-bombed to try to shut down the discussion. And the talking points they were armed with had very little to do with Obama and a lot to do with trying to kill the messenger -- in the normal metaphorical way, not involving actual bullets.

That, too, is the cold, hard truth. If you can't rebut them, shout them down.

Edited 2008-10-15 21:23 (UTC)

Then you aren't paying attention. How about the guy who was warming up the audience for Palin as week or so ago ... who kept talking about Barack HUSSEIN Obama? Keep pushing that middle name since it is the same as that guy who we had executed not too long ago. How about the ballots sent out with the name Barack Osama. That was just a coincidence, wasn't it? I'm sure that no one in the Republican Party had anything to do with either of those (I mean, really, the Republican candidate for VP wouldn't have someone from her own party give a speech before her). Or once again, Jeffrey Frederick, state chair for the GOP in Virginia. No, the RP has nothing to do with any of this.

As for the radio thing, yeah that's a bad thing. And I'm sure that no one in the RP has ever done that ... ever. Yeah, it's business as usual. It's a bad thing, but everyone does it. I can't find the article now, my damn swiss cheese memory, but in 2004 there was a concerted effort to call bomb a democratic call center who were trying to get people out to vote.

Yup, probably a bad choice to say "Hussein", because it isn't gonna help, it's just going to give people something to snipe at.

The Barack Osama thing does appear to be a coincidence according to both Democratic and Republican party officials involved. If not, then you're going to have to vilify Ted Kennedy for doing the same thing when speaking.

On the call bombing of a Democratic call center, yes, that would be wrong too. I don't know that the Republican campaign sent out an e-mail suggestion to its supporters that this would be a good thing to do.

Obama's campaign did.

Here it is ... I just needed to frame the search correctly

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/04/on_april_26_chu.html

That's a little bit worse than messing with a radio show ...

It is both wrong and illegal. It also has nothing to do with this election. Otherwise, I could dig back into the archives and find the records of the lovely folks in Milwaukee (at least two of whom were related to Democratic and former Democratic officials) who slashed the tires of vans that were to be used in the Republican GOTV effor in the 2004 election. This is also worse than messing with a radio show.

By the way, understand that I want the people who are trying to make you afraid of Obama's Muslim name and black skin to go the hell away for two reasons:

It's wrong.

Putting out false information allows people to disregard true information as "more lies".

Morally wrong and politically wrong at the same time. The Daily Double. *sigh*

Found it. (By accident, as it happens.)

Here's Obama referring specifically to Bush and McCain:

Obama began his day Wednesday in Springfield, Mo., charging: "Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky."

No, Bush and McCain haven't. And there's no other "they" lurking in the sentence to be referenced.

Here's the original article.

That is splitting hairs and you know it.

It's like the mob boss who doesn't carry a gun, so he can't be arrested on weapons charges, so he has the guy sitting next to him carry the gun.

I know that Tucker Bounds has said that McCain doesn't speak for the campaign, but do you really think that the campaign and the RNC doesn't speak for Bush and McCain? That the guy warming up the crowd for Palin who made sure that the crowd knew that Obama's middle name was Hussein wasn't speaking for them? Sure ... you betcha.

I disagree.

But there's Obama preemptively accusing Bush and McCain of making a racist appeal. Not an Obama surrogate, not an anonymous Obama supporter, the candidate himself.

Unless Obama doesn't speak for the Obama campaign...

I disagree.

Ok, why?

We have established that it was not preemptive. It had already started.

And wasn't just the other night that McCain said that he would repudiate any of the dirty campaigning, yet the next day this started showing up during dinner time

"I'm calling on behalf of John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama and his Democrat allies in the Illinois Senate opposed a bill requiring doctors to care for babies born alive after surviving attempted abortions -- a position at odds even with John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama and his liberal Democrats are too extreme for America. Please vote -- vote for the candidates who share our values. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202 863 8500."

and

"You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country."

But of course, McCain didn't actually say them himself, so they have nothing to do with him at all.

Barack Obama did vote against such a bill in the Illinois Senate. He even voted against one particular version of the bill that contained the particular language that he said was required in order to safeguard a woman's right to abortion.

In the latter case, one can argue as to the exact meaning of the word "closely". However, we've already discussed "card check" and the fact that George McGovern thinks that it's a bad idea. Quite reasonably, one might say that's part of an extreme leftist agenda, because I don't think one can characterize McGovern as "not liberal".

So I must ask, how is this dirty campaigning? What you see here -- with the possible exception of raising Obama's ties to Ayers (and Obama raises McCain's ties to Bush constantly, so I'm thinking that's not a forbidden tactic) -- is a discussion of specific issues that might influence voters.

If the McCain campaign is forbidden from discussing the candidate's past voting history and his positions on the issues, what is it allowed to discuss? How wonderful a president Barack Obama would be?

Edited 2008-10-17 20:37 (UTC)

What I find funny is that just a day or so ago you were bemoaning such things as avoiding the real issues. Now you are all for them.

As for McCain's connection with Bush

"I have voted with President Bush 90% of the time". Which is not true. it was 95% according to factcheck.org. For the record Obama voted with the President 40% of the time. So who is reaching across the aisle?

Obama said, "It's not change when John McCain decided to stand with George Bush 95 percent of the time, as he did in the Senate last year." and continues to use that tactic. So, is voting for McCain "CHANGE" as his banners say? Must be that 5%.

So, which is the correct one? Questionable "close" ties to a college professor who used to be a nutjob (and may be still), or the fact that McCain has supported Bush's policies 95% of the time. And why are you against McCain being compared to the President who, I assume, you voted for twice? Isn't that a good thing? Being compared to the sitting President?

You said just a day or so ago that we should get to the real issues. Which one is a real issue?

As you have said (and I do agree with you on card check, from the little I know about it, I need to research a bit more) the RNC should be campaigning on the issues. But all they seem to have is Bill Ayers. So what does that say about Obama. That the RNC doesn't think they really have anything else to go on except innuendo? While Obama talks about what McCain has done as recently as during the last year, McCain talks about someone who Obama knew and was on a board with 15 years ago. How much of the RNC ads have been about Ayers?

And as for the Illinois Senate bill, go look again, I don't think he voted against it.

I've been staying out of this

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