On May 17, The New York Times reported that a group of high-profile GOP strategists are planning a massive ad campaign to attack Obama's connections to Reverend Wright. The proposed plan would be funded by Joe Ricketts, billionaire co-founder of TD Ameritrade and owner of the Chicago Cubs. The plan is estimated to cost around $10 million and would be counter to the Romney campaign's strategy, which has made a conscious effort to focus on President Obama's first term record. The New York Times received a detailed outline of the plans when a person who is not involved in the campaign was alarmed by the title of the plan. It is called "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good".
The plan received by The New York Times was 54 pages long and professionally bound and illustrated. It included the need to find an "extremely literate conservative African-American" to deflect the accusations of race-baiting. This all suggests that Mr. Ricketts feels that Senator McCain's decision not to attack Reverend Wright was not a moral decision to avoid personal attacks, but a very detrimental one.
Unfortunately it seems as if nothing in politics is out-of-bounds anymore, so there is really no expectation that this plan will be abandoned on moral grounds. What most people seem to be focused on is whether the American people will respond to it. There are many who point out that in 2008 Barack Obama was a relatively unknown and inexperienced politician, whose lack of exposure concerned many people. This makes any possible connections to domestic terrorists (Bill Ayers) or anti-American pastors a much more frightening aspect of Barack Obama. After one term as president these attacks will likely have a much smaller positive effect for conservatives, given that he is no longer as mysterious and unknown as he was in 2008. It should also be noted that although many people are not pleased with his first term, surveys show that many independents still like him personally, which means any attacks that seem unfair or misleading could cause independents to empathize with his cause.
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Comments: 8
But, by the same standards, if it can not be sufficiently proven that Rev Wright's sermons were detrimental or had any negative on President Obama's first term in office, then NO, it should never be discussed by politicians nor reported by the news media.
Insinuations, ennuendoes, false statements, suppositions, falsified documentation, rumors, opinions, guess work, wishful thinking, backroom gossip and/or unsubstantiated reports, have no place in responsibile reporting by the news media, regardless of who or what group of people hold such questionable information to be truth. If the story can not be verified, then it is not ethically reportable news.
You make a good point that if there are events during the past few years that can be linked to topics that Rev Wright had spoken on from the pulpit it could have more impact now than in 2008. If the bring up such events as how the President berated a police officer as prejudice when properly following established procedures, ones that he was a trainer for, or more recently suggesting that an innoccent teenage was killed becuase of his race or attire and the individual hwo killed the kid is found innocent. Obiviously there needs to be more than a few high profile incidents but you are right they will have to related specific action by the President to Rev Wright's preachings.
well, no, it is not a great strategy. I imagine that's the reason that Mitt Romney repudiated the plan for the campaign, and Mr. Ricketts, the money man, pretty soon came around and said this ain't happening.
"Crossroads"- the Karl Rove Superpac- might be interested in it. Give them time. They don't care about any of that morality stuff.
Just because Romney doesn;t like it doesn't mean it won't work. And if it works then is it such a failed strategy?
Strategies of any sort only work if there is fertile ground for them to grow in. In this case if people are looking for a reason to vote against Obama then a few credible incidents could be enough to make it work. A simple version of this strategy could be to show how little the President has done to openly discuss all many untouchable parts of the race relations or gender relations. And it doesn't even have to be a personal action on his part, it can be a campaign staffer belittling Mrs. Romney for never having worked while raising 5 children that don;t seemed to have turned out to be bad kids.
If this election is close as I suspect it will be enough votes may be affected by such a strategy, and those votes could have a significant impact. So I am not as sure as you that is will not be an effective strategy for a fragment of the voting public.
"It included the need to find an "extremely literate conservative African-American" to deflect the accusations of race-baiting." This kind of reminded me of this story by Politico:
Stefanie Brown, director of the campaign’s African American Vote program, wrote in an “urgent†March 21 email to contacts in the black community that “The Obama for America campaign is in the process of really staffing up in states around the country, and I need your help to find qualified, African American candidates for some of these positions.†The email, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, notes that “this is a fast moving process and your (quick) support is greatly appreciated.â€