McCain Campaign Ads: Dishonorable Edition
If there was any lingering doubt as to the tone that will characterize these last weeks on the campaign trail, take a look at this disapproving, if vague, McCain ad, in which a disdainful-sounding narrator claims Barack Obama did something dishonorable at some point in the campaign, and also, liberals are bad or something like that.If there was any lingering doubt as to the tone that will characterize these last weeks on the campaign trail, take a look at this disapproving, if vague, McCain ad, in which a disdainful-sounding narrator claims Barack Obama did something dishonorable at some point in the campaign, and also, liberals are bad … or something like that.
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Those who prize civility over frank talk or success in politics may be disheartened to learn that attack ads of the type President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have begun to fling at each other are as old as the republic itself, and as New York magazine columnist Frank Rich says, they’re absolutely essential for effective politics.
Newt Gingrich has made it clear that if he can't be president, he's going to try to take Mitt Romney down with him. But the former House speaker’s endless stream of attack ads could, perversely, end up strengthening the "Massachusetts Moderate," who seems likely to survive the onslaught.The former House speaker’s endless stream of attack ads could, perversely, end up strengthening the "Massachusetts Moderate," who seems likely to survive the onslaught.
Joe Klein points out that the newfound anonymity of attack ads, made possible by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which allows faceless money conglomerates to run ads on a candidate's behalf without the usual "I approved this message," makes for much "more effective and brutal" adverts.
Observers credit a spate of attack ads for Newt Gingrich’s recent tumble -- and Mitt Romney’s rise -- in Iowa polls ahead of the state’s Republican caucus. But where did they come from? Not Romney’s campaign, but rather a PAC staffed by former Romney insiders and empowered by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling to spend as much as it likes to destroy his opponents.
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