The
Boston Globe has a good article on this.
The whole premise of a smear is that if you can cripple a voter's basic trust in a candidate, you can probably turn his vote
As the Boston Globe says, this fact makes crooked politicians look for dirt
The idea is to find some piece of personal information that is tawdry enough to raise doubts, repelling a candidate's natural supporters. It's not hard to turn up something a candidate would rather not see on the front page of The Boston Globe.
Voters desensitized to normal sins
But this smear game has been played so often that is getting increasingly hard to get voters to switch based on relatively "normal" sins.
Bush's focusing on Iraq before 9/11, Reagan's Iran/Contra and Kerry's anti war speeches are examples of true "sins" that failed to move many voters.
But truth is not necessarily part of a smear
If a lie is repeated often enough, it may make undecided voters believe there is something to the rumor
Smearing McCain in 2000
In the 2000 primaries, "with few substantive differences between Bush and McCain, the campaign was bound to turn personal. The situation was ripe for a smear."
Rove then created the
Push poll specifically to smear McCain
A push poll is where, using the guise of opinion polling, disinformation about a candidate or issue is planted in the minds of those being 'surveyed'. Push-polls are designed to shape, rather than measure, public opinion.
Would you vote for someone who fathered an illegitimate black child ?
Bush's campaign strategists, including Karl Rove, devised a push poll against John McCain. South Carolina voters were asked "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?". They had no interest in the actual percentages in the poll, the goal was to suggest that [McCain had a black child]. This was particularly vicious since McCain was campaining with his adopted [dark skinned] Bangladeshi daughter
Bush Sr. had previously dismissed Karl Rove from his campaign due to similar gutter politics, but Jr loves his, in his own words,
"turd blossom"
Rove kept on smearing McCain, and used Ted Sampley to do it. Ted is a known vet with a chip on his shoulder for other vets who got famous. Sampley had even smeared Bush Sr. in his 1997 tale: George Bush Parachutes Again to Exorcise Demons of Past Betrayal
Doing business with a guy who smeared your own father ?
That is so LOW!
As Republicans like to remind us, we need character and integrity in the White House. Rove, and Bush who keeps him as his top advisor, obviously don't have any of those.
Doing business with a guy who smeared Bush's own father
What Ted Sampley, founder of Vietanm Vets against Kerry (and McCain's nemesis in 2000) said about Bush Sr:
George Bush Parachutes Again to Exorcise Demons of Past Betrayal
By Ted Sampley
March/April/May 1997
Former President George Bush, who bailed out of a crippled Navy Avenger bomber 53 years ago, jumped again in March of this year. His World War II jump is historic. It made Bush the only president to ever bail out of an airplane and the only president whose crew mates were sent careening into the ocean because their pilot had abandoned the aircraft...
After 44 years of silence, Mierzejewski, who also was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, told the New York Post that Bush had abandoned his crew to death when there was another choice.
Gunner Lawrence Mueller, who lives in Milwaukee, flew on the ChiChi Jima mission. When asked who had the best view, he replied unhesitatingly: "The turret gunner in Melvin's plane."
Mueller's recollections, jogged by a log book that he kept, support Mierzejewski's account. And it was noted that Bush's plane was the only one from the squadron that did not return. Mueller told the Post, "No parachute was sighted except Bush's when the plane went down." He also said no one mentioned a fire engulfing Bush's plane or he would have noted it in the log book.
Gee doesn't that "there was no fire" recanting of decades old fact sounds familiar ?
Professional Liars
Some aspects of McCain's smear were hardly so subtle. Bob Jones University professor Richard Hand sent an e-mail to 'fellow South Carolinians' stating that McCain had 'chosen to sire children without marriage.' It didn't take long for mainstream media to carry the charge. CNN interviewed Hand and put him on the spot: 'Professor, you say that this man had children out of wedlock. He did not have children out of wedlock.' Hand replied, 'Wait a minute, that's a universal negative. Can you prove that there aren't any?'"
Today's Push Polls
Push polls prove popular party poopers 06/25/04
Push polls prove popular party poopers
Last week, a pleasant voice called to ask my opinion about "important political issues facing people in this election year."
A quick introduction of the alleged firm conducting the survey was followed by 20 minutes of questions regarding President Bush and adversary Sen. John Kerry.
If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have known about Bush's high placement of Hispanics in his administration and his lust for preservation of good old family values.
Just like I wouldn't have known about how many Senate votes Kerry missed, his shameful stance on Cuba or his sinful support of gay marriage.