The close your eyes and plug your ears strategy

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

McCain-Palin have been distorting their records and Obama's record consistently since the retooling of the campaign in July. When the campaign gets called out on this by the media they claim that they don't care or decry the media's elitism/sexism for having the temerity to ask relevant questions about the candidates' records and positions on the issues. Even Karl Rove believes that McCain's ads have gone too far: www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13428.html


Now there are reports that the McCain campaign distorted Palin's asserted trip to Iraq: www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/09/13/palin_camp_clarifies_extent_of_iraq_trip/

The McCain campaign also seems to be offering inflated crowd estimates for their events: www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a1J0tfV3XJYs&refer=politics


In addition the McCain campaign is standing by its debunked statements about the Bridge to Nowhere: firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/13/1394679.aspx

The McCain campaign's typical reaction is that they don't care what the media has to say:

"We’re running a campaign to win. And we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it.”

dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=59999227-18FE-70B2-A843A61B46DCD096


So basically McCain's campaign is now based on presenting its own version of the truth and discounting those who challenge them. The strategy can be effective in that it makes the other side spend an inordinate amount of time addressing the mis-characterizations and lies instead of speaking to the issues, but McCain is adopting this strategy 7 weeks before the election. So there are certainly short-term gains that can be realized from the strategy. But can this strategy work over the rest of the race without turning off voters by seeming less than genuine? I don't think so.

[FewFAC]

Unfortunately, America is filled with people who would rather lose their integrity and honor than lose something far less meaningful. I don't know that a $66M fundraising month will make a difference, but then no one suspected that it could in Iowa either.

[Boz]

Sept 14, 2008 23:08:13 GMT -5 StPetersburgHoya (Inactive) said:

So basically McCain's campaign is now based on presenting its own version of the truth and discounting those who challenge them.

Um, hi. I'm a political campaign. Nice to meet you.

What amazes me is that you think that this is only being done by one side. Do you really believe that the Obama campaign doesn't have "versions of the truth?" And doesn't try to dismiss challenges to their versions of the truth? Really?

As for the specific claims, yes, the sex education ad has been widely blasted and it was a mistake. I still don't agree with Obama's position, but the ad was a distortion. How is it any more of a distortion than saying for weeks that John McCain wanted to have "100 years of war in Iraq," or that John McCain is in the pocket of big oil, when it was Barack Obama who voted for the last energy bill, while John McCain opposed it. Just because it's not as juicy as a sex education ad doesn't make it any less of a lie.

The trip to Iraq and inflating event numbers? Excuse me, but me and 300 million other people are collectively yawning. These are standard campaign tactics of exaggeration, kind of like when Barack Obama says he chairs a committee that passes legislation when in fact, he doesn't even serve on that committee. Oh wait; maybe that's worse.

Let's make a deal. I won't defend every single tactic John McCain uses in this campaign, if you stop pretending that Barack Obama is some sort of pristine figure above the fray whose campaign doesn't indulge in some of the very same tactics.

[strummer8526]

This is like saying that we shouldn't condemn someone who traffics kilos of cocaine just because we don't really mind when someone buys a dime bag of weed. I think there are degrees here, and there is no doubt that McCain is engaging in this deception to a MUCH greater degree, at least recently. Obama has engaged in politics, yes, but I think there's been a qualitative and quantitative difference between his lies and McCain's.

[Boz]

Well, I appreciate the acknowledgement at least.

Respectfully, I will submit to you that your -- and my -- gradations of the quality and quantity of distortions are directly related to the candidate and/or political philosophy we support. I think that goes for most of us here.

I don't think we have any real undecided voters around here -- or if we do, they are far too smart to delve into the fracas we engage in every day -- so I think we'll probably just continue to disagree on who is worse.

But you can toss the cocaine dealer and the weed smoker in jail with hifi for all I care. ;D

[kchoya]

Sept 15, 2008 9:12:17 GMT -5 strummer8526 said:

This is like saying that we shouldn't condemn someone who traffics kilos of cocaine just because we don't really mind when someone buys a dime bag of weed. I think there are degrees here, and there is no doubt that McCain is engaging in this deception to a MUCH greater degree, at least recently. Obama has engaged in politics, yes, but I think there's been a qualitative and quantitative difference between his lies and McCain's.

1. to say that Obama's "lies" aren't as bad or prevalent as McCain's "lies" only means that you believe what Obama is dishing, and of course you think he's telling the truth.

2. I continue to be amazed at how sensitive people on this board are about the practice of presidential politics. AS Boz points out, are you really shocked that McCain is presenting his story, his facts, his opinions, and they're different from Obama's? This is a fight for the presidency and the leadership of the country? You don't think each side is to going to attack the other and try to highlight the differences?

I think Obama is less than genuine because I don't believe what he says matches up with what he believes and what he's done (the little he has done). I guess I could say, like St.Pete does, that Obama is telling his version of the truth.

[Bando]

Sept 15, 2008 9:50:02 GMT -5 Boz said:

Well, I appreciate the acknowledgement at least.

Respectfully, I will submit to you that your -- and my -- gradations of the quality and quantity of distortions are directly related to the candidate and/or political philosophy we support. I think that goes for most of us here.

I don't think we have any real undecided voters around here -- or if we do, they are far too smart to delve into the fracas we engage in every day -- so I think we'll probably just continue to disagree on who is worse.

But you can toss the cocaine dealer and the weed smoker in jail with hifi for all I care. ;D

I am fully prepared to flip-flop on my stance on drug legalization if HiFi can be imprisoned.

[Filo]

Sunday WaPo editorial by Donald Luskin that touches on this very subject:

Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line

Of course, an op ed trying to tell us the economy is not in that bad shape isn't all that well-timed when it is on the same day that the 4th largest US investment bank went under, but who am I to criticize...

But here are some relevant excerpts:

Patient zero in this epidemic is the Democratic candidate for president. As it would be for any challenger, it's in his interest to portray the incumbent party's economic performance in the grimmest possible terms. Barack Obama has frequently used the Depression exaggeration, including during a campaign speech in June, when he said that the "percentage of homes in foreclosure and late mortgage payments is the highest since the Great Depression." At best, this statement is a good guess. To be really true, it would have to be heavily qualified with words such as "maybe" or "probably." According to economist David C. Wheelock of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, who has studied the history of mortgage markets for the Fed, "there are no consistent data on foreclosure or delinquency going all the way back to the Depression."

...

Here's another one not to be too alarmed about: Obama is flat-out wrong when he frets on his campaign Web site that "the personal savings rate is now the lowest it's been since the Great Depression." The latest rate, for the second quarter of 2008, is 2.6 percent -- higher than the 1.9 percent rate that prevailed in the last quarter of Bill Clinton's presidency.

...

Full disclosure: I'm an adviser to John McCain's campaign, though as far as I know, the senator has never taken one word of my advice. He's been sounding a little pessimistic on the economy of late, too. And to be fair, he isn't immune to the Depression-exaggeration virus, either. At a campaign news conference in July, my fellow adviser Steve Forbes warned that Obama was seeking "the biggest tax increase since Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression." Factual? Almost certainly not.