by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH - November 5, 2008
This column was written on October 30, 2008. At that time it seemed as if Senator
Obama would win the election, but that outcome was far from certain. Polls have been wrong before. But never before had the Republican Theft
Election Machine been in such high a gear nor operating
at such a broad, indeed nation-wide level. One thing that is certain is that if McCain/Palin have won,
while such an outcome will be due in major part to Grand Election Theft, it
will also be due in major part to the triumph of Republican negative
campaigning.
On the issues, the economy, the war(s), health care, education,
and etc., both McCain and Palin stayed away from any program specifics as much
as they possibly could. They did
hammer hard on the “tax and spend Democrats” theme that has served the
Republican Party so well for the last 30 years since the triumph of the
“anti-tax” Proposition 13 in California in 1977 that gave the theme to the
Republicans. (It also helped to
bring down what was at one time the best K-12 and higher education systems in
the country. But the Democrats
could never seem to get the agenda back to what it should be: what taxes are
spent on. Nor have the Democrats
ever exploited both the Reagan/Bush I and Bush II “borrow and spend”
programs. But that’s another
story.) But specifics of their
won? Nah. However, under the direction of
Atwater/Rove trainee Steve “Bullet Head” Schmidt, McCain/Palin have exploited
the direct negative, personal, guilt-by-association track to a fair-thee-well.
For
example, McCain did say “no” to exploiting “The Rev. Wright” issue (although
over the last weekend a Republican “527” went at it hot-and-heavy) but both
candidates used Prof. William Ayers (admittedly without noting the “Prof.”
part) profusely, as well as “socialist” and “terrorist.” (I do have to note that it was Sen.
Hillary Clinton who introduced both the Rev. Wright and Prof. Ayers with the
claim that Senator Obama’s associations with them, of whatever level, were
legitimate campaign issues.) In
the last week McCain/Palin brought up a new one, although it may have come back
to bite them. (McCain doesn’t seem
to vet candidates for sliming-use any better than he vets candidates to be his
Vice-Presidential running mate.) Columbia University Professor of Middle Eastern Studies Rashid Khalidi
is a Palestinian-American who is a strong critic of Israel policy in the
Occupied Territories. The Los
Angeles Times has in its possession a videotape of Senator Obama attending a 2003 (!) party for Prof.
Khalidi at which the Senator apparently offered some praise to him, maybe even
a toast (heaven forefend). As of this writing, the paper would not release the
tape because of a promise to the source that provided it. Sen.
Obama has been a casual friend of Prof. Khalidi when he lived in
Chicago and in 2000 the Prof. held a fund-raiser for an unsuccessful Obama bid
for a Congressional seat.
On
last Thursday, October 30, McCain/Palin were going full bore on this one. On Wednesday, Oct. 29 McCain said 1960s
radical Bill Ayers had attended the same party in 2003. McCain and Palin have
criticized Obama for his ties to Ayers and questioned what the videotape of the
party might show. "Among
other things, Israel was described there as the perpetrator of terrorism rather
than the victim," Palin said at a rally in Ohio (not noting that this is a
view held by many Israeli critics of the present government). "What we
don't know is how Barack Obama responded to these slurs on a country that he
professes to support." In a story published in April, the LA Times said Obama spoke out at the 2003 event on the need for common ground on the
Israel-Palestinian issue. Obama has said during the campaign that his commitment
to Israel's security is "nonnegotiable." At 6 AM on the morning of October
30, when the other morning cable news shows were discussing the Obama
presentation of the previous evening, the Republican National Committee Channel
(otherwise known as the Fox"News"Channel) was leading with
Khalidi. It just happened (no
time, I guess) that it was never once mentioned that he is a professor at
Columbia and of course the McCain connection (see the next paragraph) was never
mentioned either. Neither did "Morning Joe" mention either
fact, for that matter. But "Rashid Khalidi" unadorned does
have a good "terrorist" sound, doesn't it, ever better than
"Bill Ayers."
But then came the “oops,” which I first heard on Keith Olbermann’s
“Countdown” on Wednesday evening, October 29. McCain also has ties to Khalidi, perhaps more substantial
than Obama’s, through a group Khalidi helped found 15 years ago. The Center for
Palestine Research and Studies received at least $448,000 from an organization McCain chairs. At the time of writing it remained to
be seen what would happen with this one.
As we entered the last week of the presidential election campaign,
much was being made and much will continue to be made of "negative
campaigning." If McCain
managed to win, much credit will be given to his “tough campaign” (and little
will be made, once again, of the Republican Election Theft Machine). If McCain does lose, then perhaps,
negative campaigning of the Republican Slime Machine “Big
Lie/guilt-by-association/focus-on-anything-but-the-issues” sort will be given a
bad name, at least for the nonce. But it is interesting at this time to examine just how the mainstream
media react to negative campaigning, in general, for that reaction in itself
raises an issue for the future.
The mainstream media makes much of the practice, even though it
has a long-standing tradition in American politics going back to the early 19th
century. But I'm confused. The MSM's usual take on what's going on is "a
plague on both your houses," as if
both campaigns were engaging in the same kind of campaigning that can described
as "negative." So the McCain campaign says Sen. Obama is a
"socialist" while the Obama campaign says that Sen. McCain voted for
Bush policies 90% of the time. Sarah Palin says that Sen. Obama has been
"pallin' around with terrorists," while Sen. Obama points out that
Sen. McCain's proposed tax cuts benefit only the wealthy. A McCain Minnesota
robo-call, which ends with the statement "this call as approved by the
Republican National Committee and Sen. John McCain," says that Sen. Obama
was a "close associate of the terrorist [Prof. William] Ayers,"
(demonstrably untrue) while Sen. Obama points out that Sen. McCain is on record
as proposing to appoint Supreme Court justices who would vote to overturn Roe
v. Wade.
McCain/Palin actually benefit from the LA Times’ refusal to
release the video-tape in question, because then while the Fox”News”Channel can
go on and on about Prof. Khalidi as if he were some active “Palestinian
Terrorist,” McCain can make an issue of the paper’s refusal to release the tape
(as of this writing), while an MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mike Barnicle can
say “well, if it were a Sarah Palin tape it would be all over the internet by
now.” In the meantime, Sen. Obama
asks his audiences if they are as well off now as were four weeks ago, due to
the Bush economic policy that Sen. McCain supports, and also asks them to think
about whether they would be better off four years from now were Sen. McCain to
win.
Somehow I don't see these two kinds of ads as comparable. McCain/Palin attack
Obama with half-truths, fully un-truths, guilt-by-association and character
assassination (while letting people at their rallies scream death threats with
very infrequent comments from the podium). Obama attacks McCain on policy
issues and yes, sometimes does use the word "erratic," one that many
Republicans have used to describe his behavior during the campaign. Since
McCain has made "suitability for the office" a campaign issue (and
with his choice of Palin it surely is), it would seem that "erratic"
is a word hardly in the same category as "terrorist." But I guess
that I must have missed something. Because the MSM continue to tell us that
this is a negative campaign and that both sides have contributed equally to the
negativity.
Polling
did indicate that voters saw McCain negative campaigning in a negative
light. By the time you read this,
we will have a pretty good idea of what the effect on the voters really was,
and what their judgment means for the future of the Republican Party in
particular and American politics in general.
Surprise,
surprise. These are topics to
which I will be returning. 