Apr 06 2008
Obama on Negative Ads (from Audacity of Hope)
pg 79 of Audacity of Hope:
Perhaps my greatest bit of good fortune during my own Senate campaign was that no candidate ran a negative TV ad about me. This had to do entirely with the odd circumstances of my Senate race, and not an absence of material with which to work. After all, I had been in the state legislature for seven years when I ran, had been in the minority for six of those years, and had cast thousands of sometimes difficult votes. As is standard practice these days, the National Republican Senatorial Committee had prepared a fat binder of opposition research on me before I was even nominated, and my own research team spent many hours combing through my record in an effort to anticipate what negative ads the Republicans might have up their sleeves.
They didn’t find a lot, but they found enough to do the trick—a dozen or so votes that, if described without context, could be made to sound pretty scary. When my media consultant, David Axelrod, tested them in a poll, my approval rating immediately dropped ten points. There was the criminal law bill that purported to crack down on drug dealing in schools but had been so poorly drafted that I concluded it was both ineffective and unconstitutional—“Obama voted to weaken penalties on gangbangers who deal drugs in schools,” is how the poll described it. There was a bill sponsored by antiabortion activists that on its face sounded reasonable enough—it mandated lifesaving measures for premature babies (the bill didn’t mention that such measures were already the law)—but also extended “personhood” to previable fetuses, thereby effectively overturning Roe v. Wade; in the poll, I was said to have “voted to deny lifesaving treatment to babies born alive.” Running down the list, I came across a claim that while in the state legislature I had voted against a bill to “protect our children from sex offenders.”
I WONDER SOMETIMES how things might have turned out had those ads actually run. Not so much whether I would have won or lost—by the time the primaries were over, I had a twenty-point lead over my Republican opponent—but rather how the voters would have perceived me, how, entering into the Senate, I would have had a much smaller cushion of goodwill. For that is how most of my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, enter the Senate, their mistakes trumpeted, their words distorted, and their motives questioned. They are baptized in that fire; it haunts them each and every time they cast a vote, each and every time they issue a press release or make a statement, the fear of losing not just a political race, but of losing favor in the eyes of those who sent them to Washington—all those people who have said to them at one time or another: “We have great hopes for you. Please don’t disappoint us.”
8 responses so far
[…] Read the rest of this great post here […]
If Obama wins the Primary, the Republicans will give him his long overdue ‘Baptism by Fire’. A lot of the info that is on this website is starting to show up in recent GOP e-mails. (HOW I got on 3 GOP fundraising e-mail lists is a mystery to me, a die-hard, life-long Democrat!) My only hope is that should he get that far, they will blast him to Kingdom Come - enough so he won’t ever be elected so much as dogcatcher, let alone win re-election for his US Senate seat. Obama will go down in history as screwing up a ’slam-dunk’, ‘no-brainer’ election for the Democrats, especially after 8 yrs of that moron, George Dubya.
Sadly, all this dirt on Obama SHOULD have gone mainstream a year ago, making him a non-contender in the race. Now, when it is too late, the country will be stuck with another 4 years the same crap in the White House. When WILL the Democrats learn to get their act together?!?!
While I haven’t read Mr. Obama’s books, I appreciate the excerpt. It strains credulity to believe that he would have ever been worried about running against Alan Keyes-his opponent in the senate election written about here. Mr. Keyes was a last minute entrant into the race and is actually from Maryland. As most Marylanders would confirm, Mr. Keyes-a long time figure in Maryland politics-is less concerned with constructing a viable campaign and candidacy than he is with having a large scale forum to hold forth on his very conservative (strict and literal adherance to the U.S. Constitution).
While it was probably a good shake down campaign for Mr. Obama (so to speak) we can all be sure that in the 2008 general election the republican 527’s will get any controversial word out about Mr. O that may exist.
Sincerely,
Bob Reed
Very interesting.
It seems that he and Axelrod took that ball and ran with it.
Mr. Chang, I have been reading your articles with interest. I had been getting a “queasey” in the gut feeling about Obama ever since the SC racism charge against Bill, then the MLK/LBJ charge, and finally the Ferraro. The deliberate distortions and manipulations and misrepresentations turned me off. The collusion of the media selling Obama has been very disturbing.
I’d like to see a grassroots campaign to drag the media away from corporate interests… just the political/government/corporate/watchdog/corruption sections, the corporatists can have the rest.
I do believe there is something nefarious afoot, the coverage has been a campaign of personal destruction like I have never seen. To top it off you have commentators saying “the Clinton’s “earned” the enmity of the media” (Tucker Carlson) Someone else said something today about “what did she expect the media do not like the Clinton’s.” (paraphrase, just heard it while I was busy)
This is mind boggling! The media is allowed to practice personal destruction because they don’t like her?
OMG. This is the fourth estate?
The fact there can be a frank admission of this on cable news, owned by network news, owned by some corporate giant is beyond anything I would ever have been able to envision.
You mentioned in another article that Obama Girl was the lowest moment or event in election history. I think the race card being played 3 times, each time screwing Hillary out of another state is the worst ever. Even worse than the idiot king’s campaign ruining McCains run in 2000 and the swift boating of Kerry. (actually I have to check the timing of these charges but SC was certainly a result of the “Bill Clinton is a racist” charge.)
Anyway, I want to thank you for the work and research you are doing.
I don’t know if you are aware of the Write Hillary In site
http://www.writehillaryin.com
You might want to trade links with them.
I’m emailing their site to everyone I know and asking others to do the same (I’ve already told people about your site)hoping to go viral. I’ve also written to the DNC expressing my dismay and protesting the way they have been running this whole farce. If Clinton is forced to quit the race before all voters have a chance to vote I will write her in. If some fair and equitable solution isn’t found for the DNC caused debacle concerning Michigan and Florida I will write her in, something I never in a million years thought I’d do. I’ve always believed in not throwing a vote away.
I’ve written and told them this as well. I will also be registering as an Independent after this election is over.
Diana
PS. I have been posting the Write Hillary In link when ever I see someone saying they will vote for McCain if Obama wins. Not a good idea.
[…] our brief review of Axelrod’s media strategy, professionalism, negative ads, coordination, and framing, we’d like to share a few suggestions on how Hillary supporters […]
I do wonder how Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate. Don’t they investigate people first? This man is scary. His past and his associations, his church, his wife, his cousin in Kenya, etc. I have heard but does anyone know whether or not he holds dual citizenship, Kenya and the U.S. Anyone running for POTUS should only be a citzen of the U.S. I blame the democratic party entirely. This man should never have been allowed in the U.S. Senate let alone running for POTUS. Senators, Kennedy, Dodd, Leahy, Pelosi, etc. should never be re-elected. They have been trying to shove this fraud down our throats along with Jesse Jackson, Sharpton et al. These fraud and their hatred of the Clintons is mind-boggling. The media are co-conspirators in helping Obama obtain God-like status while trashing the Clintons and trying to make them seem like racists. Check out the latest article I found this morning on Savage Politics, talk about scary. http://savagepolitics.com/
Obama’s Dubious Past Goes Mainstream”
Dear Mr. Chang: Do you think you will ever run again for public office? If you do you’ll have my vote. All the best.
[…] Perhaps my greatest bit of good fortune during my own Senate campaign was that no candidate ran a negative TV ad about me. [Chang] […]