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TechnoratiRNC Launches Negative Robo Calls Campaign
The John McCain-Sarah Palin presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee began a negative robo call campaign Thursday attempting to strengthen a tenuous link between Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama and former radical Bill Ayers.
The call, which has been received locally, goes like this: "Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC, You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans."
It continues: "Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country."
The attack attempts to switch the focus from the real issue -- the economy, says the state Obama camp.
"McCain's campaign has admitted that the economy is a losing issue for them, so he's chosen to launch dishonorable and dishonest attacks like this," said Obama Campaign for Change Wisconsin spokesman Matt Lehrich.
"No amount of scare tactics and false attacks will hide the fact that John McCain can't defend the fact that he's voted with George Bush's disastrous policies 90 percent of the time and will continue the same Bush-McCain economic policies American families can't afford," Lehrich said.
Meanwhile, Kirsten Kukowski, communications director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, defended the auto calls.
"We're calling into question Barack Obama's judgment on who he surrounds himself with, people like Bill Ayers and Rev. (Jeremiah) Wright, because the voters need to know that he is associating himself with some people who have questionable backgrounds, have said and done questionable things," she said.
His associations are important because if Obama does win on Nov. 4 people should wonder who he is going to surround himself with in the Oval Office, "who he's going to have advising him, who's going to be in his ear," Kukowski said.
"We're making sure that the voters have the information that they need to make the right decision in November," she said.
Kukowski said it is her understanding that the calls are going out statewide.
The Huffington Post Web site is reporting that its received dozens of e-mails from voters who have either received the call or gotten a voice mail with a recording. Reports have come in from Wisconsin as well as Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Missouri, North Carolina, Florida, Texas and Maine.
The phone messages come one day after a presidential debate in which McCain said he didn't care about an "old washed-up terrorist."
Still, Obama calmly described his relationship with Ayers, the one-time Weather Underground leader, who Obama said has become the centerpiece of McCain's campaign over the last two or three weeks.
"This has been their primary focus," Obama said during the debate Wednesday night. "So let's get the record straight. Bill Ayers is a professor of education in Chicago.
"Forty years ago, when I was 8-years-old, he engaged in despicable acts with a radical domestic group. I have roundly condemned those acts. Ten years ago he served and I served on a school reform board that was funded by one of Ronald Reagan's former ambassadors and close friends, Mr. Annenberg.
"Other members on that board were the presidents of the University of Illinois, the president of Northwestern University, who happens to be a Republican, the president of The Chicago Tribune, a Republican-leaning newspaper.
"Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign. He has never been involved in this campaign. And he will not advise me in the White House. So that's Mr. Ayers."
10 Comments so far
Show AllWell, if it's not Jeb, this time around, it'll be someone else.
McCain's handlers are working overtime to get him into the White House - and he's probably being such a jerk 'cuz he knows whatever he does, he'll still be able to walk right into the Presidency in January.
Soemtimes I'm convinced that McCain's thumbing his nose at us, saying:
"HAH!!! I'm gonna win no matter what ugly things I do. the fix is in and you guys don't even know it. Heh Heh!".
It's so horrible and so ugly, all that McCain propaganda (literature, ph. calls, CDs) is not just going to "win" him the election, it's poisoning minds and it will be a long time before people can see the truth- if ever.
Obama will forever be "that one- that terrorist who killed Americans".
Geez, why isn't this kind of stuff ILLEGAL??!!!
(oh, wait, I forgot, there's no one left to prosecute these attacks- because Bush replaced all the US Attorneys in the DoJ. Boy, Bush sure knows how to cover his tracks).
I'm ready to revolt, too. If we have one more stolen election, it will be the end. There should be streets FULL of outraged people this time.
McCain is Bush.
Bill Moyers did a piece on Republican vote tampering on tonight's show. The point was made that if the Reps pull it off again, we will not recover. I'm not sure that we'll recover from the last theft, but I take his point.
My point is that if McCain wins, it will most definitely be because of fraud or a manufactured event. In either case, we must revolt. At that point we will have lost all vestiges of a democracy and we will be fighting for our lives.
"It is not true that it's one damn thing after another - it's one damn thing over and over." Edna St. Vincent Millay
This reminds me of my cousin in Virginia putting up with this same kind of negative attacking by Jerry KILgore in 2005. He went down in flames and Mccain is about to face the same. Mccain is running the most pathetic campaign. Obama can't lose this one at this rate. I can't believe I'm even saying this as a Nader voter.
I live in PA in a suburb just outside of Philadelphia. As this is a swing state and I am a registered Independent voter, I have been bombarded with those robo calls from the RNC telling me that Obama is "pallin'" around with those darn terrorists. This week I've gotten at least one call a day. I've had calls from live Repugs urging me to vote for McCain because putting "liberals in charge" would mean the destruction of America.
I also received a copy of the DVD - Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West - made and distributed by the Clarion Fund, some kind of right wing nut jobs. I got that copy about a month or so ago, as did all subscribers of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Just last week, I received another copy of the DVD meant to enlighten me about the dangers of muslims and how they threaten us like the Nazis did in the 40's. This one came via the USPS and was addressed directly to me. So, I guess these orgs can get a hold of the voter registration records and addresses, too. Too bad they wasted their money, I don't even have a DVD player.
Hi neighbor! Guess I should have listened to all those McCain calls before I deleted them. That Obsession DVD came with the Bucks Courier Times, too. Its in the frisbee pile.
BTW. Obama should play up what a well-rounded citizen he is. Exposure to attitudes and persuasions across the spectrum is much better than living in the DC stuffed shirt old white guy and lobbyist ghetto for 40 years.
Go Phillies!
Well hello to two neighbors, I don' t subscribe to the fishwrapper BCCT, I've yet to recieve any 'Robo' calls, albeit any emails are immediately sent to TOS spam. I did just finish listening to Michelle Bachman(R-MN)accusing Barack of Terroristic tactics, that they should open a full scale into Dems in Congress for "Anti-Americanism", McCarthy who? My first fingers could not dial quickly enough, I left a voicemail at the Rayburn and spoke to a human at one of her home offices who tried mightily to shut me up, of course it didn't work, the part of my message re; a 53 yr old white Muslim that knows that right below the surface hate speak. I said it was McCarthyesque I will spread this with rapid fire by national email blasts and please get my phone # right although you've already trapped it, and Thank You, I hate those fucking fascists!
BillofRights
Really. WHO associates with terrorists? Senator McCain continues to support foreign policiy in the form of a war that fits one UN definition of terrorism—acts "intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public" (shock and awe, anyone?)—and has resulted in the deaths of over a million men, women and children ( http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html ).
And in an attempt to give his running mate, Sarah Palin, some credibility, the campaign shows us pictures of her with Henry Kissinger, a man so seriously considered a war criminal that he cannot travel to certain countries for fear of being detained by their governments ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kissinger#Accusations_of_war_crimes_and_legal_difficulties ).
Please, spare us the “terrorist” rhetoric.
McCoot has been running the IRI (just another CIA front man) for some time now. I'm sure he "knows" terrorism quite well.
I watched a small part of a repug "war meeting" on the tv just before the debate, and it was obvious they were upset over McCain's performance so far. And they were discussing what the party would have to do if he didn't do any better in this last debate. So they've probably given up on his ability to win, so they're out to make it happen in spite of him. I still think about gw jumping out of his chair when someone came into the room to tell him and his family that Florida had just gone to Gore. (I don't remember his exact phrase on this part, but the last part is exact):"That's not right!" he yelled. "Jeb wouldn't let that happen!"