It’s Obama’s Fault McCain Has Gone Negative
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, McCain, Republicans
At least that’s what McCain claims…
McCain’s tactics are drawing the scorn of many in the media and organizations tasked with fact-checking the truthfulness of campaigns. In recent weeks, Team McCain has been described as dishonorable, disingenuous and downright cynical. [...]The defense from the candidate himself — heard only on “The View†because he hasn’t held a news conference in more than a month — is to essentially assert that he’s savaging Obama because the Illinois senator wouldn’t agree to the series of town hall meetings McCain proposed at the end of the Democratic primary season.
“If we had done what I asked Sen. Obama to do, because I’ve been in a lot of other campaigns where I have appeared with the opposition with the people and listened to their hopes and dreams and aspirations, I don’t think you’d see the tenor of this campaign,†he said.
I guess this campaign really is all about Obama.
This entry was posted on Saturday, September 13th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, McCain, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 13th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
It is OBAMA that has to resort to negative attacks. He did it against Hillary, now he is doing it to McCain. Obama just doesn’t get it. Every time he attacks, he loses credibility with moderates adn Independents, the coalition that will decide the election in the swing states.
Obama is losing altitude and will crash and burn with his negative personal attacks of John McCain and Sarah Palin.
Obama’s strategy is a definite sign of DESPERATION!
You want to know why Obama is spending a lot of time in NH?
Just released:
ZOGBY: New Hamshire – McCain 49.1, Obama 42.8
State: New Hampshire
Updated: 9/13/2008
Summary: McCain – 49.1% Obama – 42.8% Not Sure/Other – 8.1%
“Still very close here. In a state that loves John McCain, and handed Obama a bruising defeat, McCain has a higher favorability rating.â€
Electoral Votes: 4, Too close to call
Full crosstab data from New Hampshire is available to subscribers to the 2008 Presidential polling package.
Methodology: Zogby International conducted an online survey of 433 likely voters. The poll ran from Sept. 9-12. It carries a margin of error of +/- 4.8 percentage points.
September 13th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Mother of 4, its already been shown that McCain went negative first, and that Obama has shown great restraint even when faced with the outright lies of the McCain camp.
Actually I welcome Obama’s harsher tone in recent days, before he seemed unwilling to fight back.
Also the poll you cite is a Zogby interactive online poll, online polls are the worst polls in existence, they have the worst accuracy of all the polls
September 13th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Zogby? Really? Online Zogby polls are about as reliable as roulette.
September 13th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
That was rather hopelessly biased and ignorant, there, M4NH. First, as Avinash pointed out already it was in fact the McCain campaign that went negative first. Secondly the Obama responses have been extremely mild compared to what the McCain folks have been shoveling. And the Zogby online poll is such an unscientific methodology no one in the field, be they other pollsters or the politicians who pay attention to the polls take it seriously as an indicator.
September 13th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Obama should have agreed to the town hall meetings. By refusing, Obama looks like he cares more about managing his image than he does about debating the issues.
But McCain has been more negative and has broadcast more outright deceptions than Obama. I don’t think Obama’s refusal to engage in town hall meetings excuses McCain’s campaign for their excesses.
September 14th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Alan,
Maybe he should’ve, maybe he shouldn’t, and in hind sight we probably would’ve gotten to know more of the candidates if they were doing town hall meetings rather than this speech – ad nonsense. It leaves too much of the campaign to the whims of the media and that ain’t good!
Strategically it made sense for Obama not to let McCain call the shots, and nobody was saying at the time that he should’ve let McCain do the debates in an environment where he’s obviously more comfortable. So maybe this was the big blunder of the campaign, the upcoming debates will give the answer to that.
To the point of post, though, I agree with your view that it doesn’t allow the McCain campaign to have taken the low road. Their message? Do the debates as we suggest or we’ll drag you down into the mud where we’ll kick your ass! What does that say of their possible upcoming administration? More of the same from the past 8 years. It’s exactly how we got to where we’re at now.
September 14th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Interesting how everyone seems to be forgetting that Obama’s campaign counter-offered a smaller number of town hall type meetings but the McCain campaign rejected them out of hand and that was the end of that.