The Obama campaign should be running high-road advertisements, whether they be pushing Senator Obama’s plans or critiquing Senator McCain’s. Like the McCain campaign, however, the Obama campaign has released ads that stretch the truth and distort quotes and past votes in Congress.
Ad one attempts to tie Senator McCain with Rush Limbaugh and out-of-context quotes Limbaugh in a manner that seemingly attempts to pit Hispanics against Senator McCain. From Jake Tapper at ABC:
First of all, tying Sen. McCain – especially on the issue of immigration reform – to Limbaugh is unfair.
Limbaugh opposed McCain on that issue. Vociferously. And in a larger sense, it’s unfair to link McCain to Limbaugh on a host of issues since Limbaugh, as any even occasional listener of his knows, doesn’t particularly care for McCain.
Second, the quotes of Limbaugh’s are out of context. […]
The greater implication the ad makes, however, is that McCain is no friend to Latinos at all, beyond issues of funding the DREAM act or how NCLB money is distributed. By linking McCain to Limbaugh’s quotes, twisting Limbaugh’s quotes, and tying McCain to more extremist anti-immigration voices, the Obama campaign has crossed a line into misleading the viewers of its new TV ad. In Spanish, the word is erróneo.
In ad two,
Obama says that McCain voted three times to privatize Social Security, and that he is willing to risk the nation’s retirement program on the risky stock market. Now, it is true that McCain did support President Bush’s effort to privatize a portion of Social Security. But it is not true that McCain is running for president on a platform of turning Social Security over to Wall Street.
Ad three (from the same article)
says McCain “voted against tax incentives for alternative energy against ethanol, against fuel cells, against hybrids, against electric cars, against wind and solar, against geothermal.” Then the ad says McCain wants to give $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies. This is all a nifty bit of misdirection. The oil company tax breaks the ad refers to are a corporate tax cut McCain favors, which would apply to almost all profitable companies, not just oil companies including those companies that work on wind, solar and biofuels.
I understand the necessity of the Obama campaign to make low-road hits after the onslaught of similar ads from the McCain campaign. But surely there are enough critiques to be made of the McCain plan for America that don’t involve stooping to his level of dishonor.
I really don’t understand why someone in the Obama campaign thought this was a good idea. What a disappointment, Barack. You’re better than this. Please remind us.
