What Exactly is a "Respectful" Campaign, Anyway?

One of the promises we've been hearing from both sides during this Campaign Season has been that the race for President would be civil, respectful, and focused on the issues. Has this campaign lived up to those ideals? Not anymore, it seems.

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After Senator McCain had locked up the GOP nomination, he made a pledge that no matter who won the Democratic primary, he would run a clean and respectable campaign.

This is from a "USA Today" article on the subject:

McCain said he hope[d there would be less negativity in the campaign], adding that he respects both Obama and Clinton, and believes they respect him. "Americans want more respectful campaigns," he added. But the longtime proponent of overhauling campaign finance laws said it's very hard to control the activities of allegedly independent groups that engage in negative campaigning.

Even his current wife Cindy weighed in on the issue. This is from an MSNBC recap of an interview.

Mrs. McCain said that the upcoming campaign against either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton would not engage in negative tactics.

"We'd rather not win than to have to do that," Mrs. McCain said. "That's not worth winning for. This is about being a leader and a person that can be a good example for our children, and a good role model. There's many, many, many more things to this job than just being the president. You are an example. You have to — you have to be better than that. You have to be."

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Flop

Where to begin?

This week has brought so much negativity from the McCain campaign that it's hard to sort it all out.A "New York Times" Editorial on the subject says it quite well:

The candidate who started out talking about high-minded, civil debate has wholeheartedly adopted Mr. Rove’s low-minded and uncivil playbook...

Mr. Obama has distorted Mr. McCain’s record at times, but Mr. McCain’s false charges have been more frequent: that Mr. Obama opposes “innovation” on energy policy; that he voted 94 times for “higher taxes”; and that Mr. Obama is personally responsible for rising gasoline prices.

And Mr. McCain has not stopped there. Taking a page straight from Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove, Mr. McCain has been trying to distract voters from his support for an unending war in Iraq by portraying Mr. Obama as unpatriotic and weak. This line of attack reached a crescendo last week when Mr. McCain fumed and fussed and went to places with European-sounding names while Mr. Obama traveled abroad.

Mr. McCain repeatedly said Mr. Obama “would rather lose a war to win a political campaign” and that he “does not understand” what is at stake in Iraq. He also accused Mr. Obama of canceling a visit to wounded American troops in a German military hospital because news cameras were not allowed. That’s a false account of what occurred — and Mr. McCain ignored Mr. Obama’s unheralded visit to a combat hospital in Baghdad.

In addition to numerous distortions of policy, the McCain campaign has also started to attack Obama's character and popularity. The McCain campaign has referred to Obama as a "celebrity" and released a commercial comparing him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

In a marked departure from the disastrous 2004 Kerry campaign in which the candidate did not address the negativity aimed at him, the Obama campaign is directly addressing the smears with its own Web site called "Low Road Express" (ed. Great name!), found at www.lowroadexpress.com.

Will the McCain campaign make a retreat from some of this negativity? We would like to remind the reader, and hopes that Obama reminds voters, that the McCain campaign is now in the hands of the same people that got George W. Bush re-elected in 2004. How well did that work out for Americans?

Lastly, we'll leave you with the Obama campaign's response to the negativity coming out of the McCain campaign:

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Comments

1.) topcat2001 at 9:53 AM on Aug 2, 2008

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