The past ten days of the campaign have been some of the least desirable with Senator McCain and Senator Obama engaging in political tactics that distract from what a presidential campaign should be: about the issues.
While the exact moment the campaign went negative is hard to pinpoint, as it most likely was a comment that one campaign found to be a hidden jab, the marker of when the public saw the ugly side of national campaigns was John McCain’s ad “Troops” that ignored the facts and accused Barack Obama of ignoring wounded troops in favor of working out in the gym.
A few days later, the McCain campaign released the ad “Celeb” and followed up with the web video “The One.” The ads provoked ire on the left and were meant to mock Obama’s mass appeal and portray him as nothing more than a stuffed shirt. Additionally, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis accused Barack Obama of playing the race card. When asked about their appropriateness of the ads and charging Obama with playing the race card, McCain responded by chastising Obama for bringing race into the campaign. He then said that the ads were “parodies” and ways for his staff to “blow off steam.” As Bob Herbert of the New York Times noted in his editorial “Running While Black” this past weekend, that in 2006, the RNC ran an ad that was racially tinged against Harold Ford and called it a “parody” as well. Herbert also noted that many of the operatives responsible for the 2006 ad attacking Harold Ford, are now in the upper echelon of McCain’s campaign.
When asked about his Iraq position, Senator McCain has said throughout his campaign that he would rather “lose a campaign than lose a war.” We admired him for this stance, as did the voters who chose him to be the Republican presidential nominee. However, it seems that Senator McCain, who himself lost in the 2000 Republican primaries (and was so hurt by them he almost left the Republican Party) due to being smeared by the tactics his own campaign now employ, is willing to lose his reputation to become president.
Senator Obama is also hurting his reputation by changing positions on issues, the latest being oil drilling. However, he and his campaign have attempted to stay above the fray of negativity, but seem to have been dragged down into it in recent days.
The media is also to blame for these attacks. When one candidate releases an attack ad, the major news outlets report on the attack ad nauseum. The attack ads are played so frequently on the cable news networks that the campaign releasing it does not need to buy air time for it. The pundits try to dissect every word and image, while not focusing on more pressing issues.
In the 1992 presidential election, James Carville repeated the phrase “it’s the economy stupid!” to remind the Clinton campaign staff, media and country that the election was about an issue: the economy. There were serious economic problems facing the country then and the candidates focused more on the issues than they did on the attacks. Now we all need to remind Barack Obama and John McCain that the country faces serious problems that are worse than the challenges we faced in 1992. Today we face a housing crisis, a recession, a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and an energy crisis. Yet, the candidates do not seem to be addressing them. They are too caught up in the politics of personal attacks as opposed to the politics of moving the country forward.
We as voters deserve to be told by the candidates where they stand on the issues and what their presidency will look like. We don’t want to hear attacks or lines about how great their plans are, we want to hear solutions. Somebody needs to take Senator McCain and Senator Obama aside and tell them “it’s the issues stupid!”
