[mukto-mona] This early the campaign turned outright ugly!

This early the campaign just turned outright ugly!

 

A.H. Jaffor Ullah

 

The November 4 election, which will decide who gets into the White House as the chief executive, is nearly three months away but from the look of the recent TV advertisement especially the ones engineered by the McCain campaign, one may think that the election just 'round the corner.

 

Senator McCain had been telling the media ever since he became the presumptive nominee of the Grand Old Party that he wanted to have a clean and respectful campaign.  Many political observers including this scribe thought that the Senator from Arizona would not tread the path trodden by George Bush and Dick Cheney in 2004 when their campaign chief, Karl Rove, engineered some nasty TV Ad to finish off Senator John Kerry's quest for the White House as the Democratic Party's flag-bearer.  The Kerry campaign did not respond to those nasty Ads in a timely fashion, which did him in at the end.  Those Ads injected doubts about Senator Kerry's military record in Vietnam.  In actuality, Kerry was a celebrated war hero but not according to those nasty ads financed by groups supporting George W. Bush.  Many ordinary Americans have way too much trust in the media.  These gullible Americans fell for the disinformation campaign.  Consequently, in the battleground states Kerry lost the election and the rest is what they say history.

 

Senator Obama's campaign is not like the Kerry campaign; it reacts rather quickly to any misstatements or falsehood engineered by the McCain campaign.  The Karl Roves of Republican Party that are busily making the attack ads will be in for a surprise during this campaign season.  We just saw a glimpse of it today (July 31, 2008).

 

Ever since Senator Obama had returned from the overseas trip in which he covered the major European nations and a few Middle Eastern nations including Iraq, Israel, and the West Bank, most leading newspapers and the network TV news covered the trip and the editorial write-ups on it were very favorable for Senator Obama.  This however did not sit well with the Republican strategists and conservative talk show hosts.  They wished that Senator Obama, who lacks foreign policy experiences, would stumble very badly and probably make a fool out of himself while visiting the European and Middle Eastern nations.  But that did not happen; therefore, McCain supporters and his top-level campaign staffs were caught off-guard when they read great encomiums that were showered to the junior senator from Illinois.  Also, the news of over 200,000 Berliners attending Obama's speech was a difficult one to swallow by the McCain campaign staff.

 

It's not an earth-shattering discovery that Senator McCain does not have enough oratorical skill.  Consequently, he could hardly give speech to a spellbound audience.  In fact, most Americans find him to be a ho-hum speaker.  He often repeats his insipid messages that lack details and specifics.  Also, he often becomes confused while talking about Shias and Sunnis in Iraq.  He repeatedly had said that Iran is arming al-Qaeda terrorists.  These oft-repeated blunders of McCain had turned him the butt of the jokes in the nightly comedy hours.  Contrast these with that of Senator Obama's oratorical skill.  Is it a small wonder that the McCain campaign is out there to engineer falsehood against the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee?

 

Since McCain campaign could not dig any dirt against Senator Obama that could hurt him politically, now the same bunch is questioning Obama's fitness to become the next president of America.  They say that Obama is a lightweight celebrity a la Britney Spears – onetime teenyboppers' idol and Paris Hilton, a socialite whose photo graces the front-page of gossip magazines in America. Perhaps 200,000 Berliners swarming Senator Obama and listening to his awe-inspiring speech was way too much for Senator McCain.  This attack Ad in TV is a direct response to Obama's popularity among Europeans.

On July 31, 2008 The White House contest between Obama and McCain took one of its nastiest turn as the campaign air filled with accusations of race-baiting and gutter politics.  Important campaign issues such as the economy and the Iraq war rather took a breather, as the Republican McCain responded with fury to Obama's assertions that his opponents would exploit his exotic name and appearance for electoral gain.  Barack Obama sent millions of e-mails to his supporters stating the following: "A few hours ago John McCain, the same man who just months ago promised to run a "respectful campaign," said he is "proud" of his latest attack ad. That's the one attacking your enthusiasm, comparing me to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, and making false claims about my energy plan. Now, we're facing some serious challenges in this country -- our economy is struggling, energy costs are skyrocketing, and families don't have health care.
Given the seriousness of these issues, you'd think we'd be having a serious debate. But instead, John McCain is running an expensive, negative campaign against us. Each day brings a desperate new set of attacks."

David Plouffe, the campaign manager of Senator Obama, also fired off millions of e-mails to Obama supporters in which he wrote: "Less than 24 hours ago, the McCain campaign launched the latest and lowest in a series of misleading attack ads. This Karl Rove-style ploy misleads people about Barack's energy plan and even mocks his ability to inspire voters and bring Americans back into the political process. Watchdogs in the media are calling McCain's accusations "bogus," "desperate," "wrong," "misleading," "ugly," "offensive," "reckless," and "a nasty turn into the gutter."

This contest for the White House is in the first innings (to use a baseball metaphor) but look at the tenor of this campaign.  The real campaign would begin right on Labor Day, which falls on September 1 this year.  However, if this trend continues, then god almighty only knows how low it could get.

It would be better if John McCain could keep his earlier promise when he said that he would run a "respectful campaign."  Come to think of it, this was his campaign promise.  From the look of it, it seems as if the attack dogs were let loose by the Karl Roves of the Republican Party.  The voters are sick-and-tired of the negative campaign.  Instead, both sides should stay on their message.  How do they plan to bring the nation out of the economic stagnation?  How to balance the budget?  How to end the war in Iraq?  These are the genuine issues and the candidate who could give a better solution to these pressing national issues would win the election.  In my opinion, of the two candidates John McCain had started the negative campaign because he is still trailing behind Senator Obama by a few percentage points.  Let us have a clean fight for a change.

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A.H. Jaffor Ullah, a researcher and columnist, writes from New Orleans, USA

     

 

                

 

 

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