Campaign Reform Dies a Final Death

Yesterday's non-posting was a Blog Day of Silence for the Victims of September 11th.

Unfortunately, now we have to deal with the realities of politics.

When it was determined that John McCain and Barack Obama would be their party's nominees, I was actually cautiously optimistic that we might have a general election campaign that was exemplary for appropriate financing with a discussion of the real issues effecting the country without childish bickering. For if these 2 upstanding gentlemen were not able to battle fairly, we should pretty much forget that ever being a possibility. Well, time to forget it.

John McCain is using public financing for his campaign, but Barack Obama opted out of it. Although there are merits to getting money in relatively small amounts from by far the largest number of people to contribute to a Presidential Campaign, this isn't the campaign finance reform we thought we would get.

As for advertising...Karl Rove still rules the day and Lee Atwater is looking on from afar and smiling. The Repubs are smart about what it takes to win the Presidency. Like making sausages, it isn't pretty. The book In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns by John G. Geer is probably required reading at the RNC. Almost all campaign ads stretch the truth to make their side look better and the other side worse. But some recent ads have been despicable and/or silly.

Barack Obama's use of the term "lipstick on a pig" when describing John McCain's policies was perhaps an ill-timed use of a fairly well-trodden phrase. However, the McCain camp's assertion that Obama was calling Sarah Palin a pig demeans every person with a brain. If any outrage should have emanated from this line, it is that Obama was inferring that the pig is John McCain's candidacy and Sarah Palin is the lipstick being applied to it (actually, this is fairly funny and somewhat accurate given recent changes in polling).

The Repubs then came out on the eve of 9/11 with an ad that implied that Barack Obama favors sex education for kindergartners. In actuality, in the Illinois Senate, Obama voted for, but was not even the sponsor of, a law dealing with 'age-appropriate' sex education for grades K-12. For kindergartners, 'age-appropriate' material deals with information on becoming aware of and fending off sexual predators, which is very important. If McCain is trying to distance himself from George W., his campaign has started to remind people just how similar the people around him are to the current administration. After being abused at the Republican Convention, the media noticeably backed off, trying to repair their image as not being too far left. But garbage like this will put the media back on their game.

Senator Obama has not been Mr. Clean either. Although his distortions haven't made people want to puke, they haven't fairly described John McCain's policies. However, in an effort to use only facts, their most recent ad is kind of funny. A new ad called 'Still' ('1982' appears prominently on the screen), makes some fair hits on McCain, his knowledge of Economics and his tax proposals, but it also says:

"He admits he still doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send an email."

True, but that has never been a requirement for the Presidency (or being a CEO, etc.). It is a way to say 'old' without using the word. But Sarah Palin sold the Alaskan governor's jet on eBay, so she can teach John McCain how to use the Net. Or they can bring in Al Gore as a Special Advisor since he created it in the first place.