McCain Campaign Turns More Negative

With the election slipping out of control, the McCain campaign has decided to make more personal attacks and smears against Barack Obama. Some of these tactics are simple, such as calling your opponent the opposite of the popular opinion. After the two debates, many have commented how presidential Obama appeared. Thus, the McCain camp runs an ad stating that Obama isn't presidential. Ooo, that is real "gotcha" campaigning.

Another method is to take a quote from your opponent and excerpt a portion of it to provide a false or misleading claim. The McCain camp is running an ad that has Obama saying that US troops are, "just air-raiding villages and killing civilians." The whole quote is; "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there." Unfortunately, there have been a large number of innocent civilians killed in Afghanistan. The Associated Press ran a fact check and also noted that US led coalition forces have regrettably killed more civilians than the militants, although militants have been known to use the disgusting and reprehensible tactic of using civilians as shields. Obama's comment intended to say that we need additional troops in Afghanistan to more effectively fight the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and prevent the deaths of innocent civilians. Collateral damage is one of the many tragedies of war. More troops and fewer air raids would likely decrease the number of civilian casualties. The deaths of innocent civilians makes it more difficult for the US to gain the support and trust of the Afghan people.

The McCain campaign has also run personal attacks against Obama this week. For example, they have decided to re-hash the issue of former-Weatherman Bill Ayers. McCain has unleashed Palin and is having her do his dirty work on the campaign trail. In a speech, Palin claimed that Obama "is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country." She even referred to an article in the New York Times that discusses Obama and Ayers. I guess she must not have read the article, as it states, "the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.' Read the entire article here.

The McCain camp has realized that it cannot run on the issues, and thus must try to attack the character of Obama. Their desperate tactic often ignores the truth and will likely backfire on them. As the public learns the truth about the claims, they lose more trust in him. Additionally, McCain has many skeletons in his closet that the Obama campaign can bring out if they are pushed too far.