Posted on 05/16/2008 2:24:33 AM PDT by Red Steel
CHICAGO (AP) -- Perhaps no one took greater comfort in the Republican Party's third straight loss of a long-held House seat this week than Barack Obama, who says the results point to clear limits in the effectiveness of attack ads he expects this fall.
The Democratic presidential candidate played a prominent role in all three special elections to fill vacant GOP seats, and he landed on the winning side each time.
In recent contests in Louisiana and Mississippi, Republicans or their allies ran TV ads linking the Democratic House nominees to Obama, warning that a vote for them was a tacit endorsement of Obama's agenda, which the ads described as very liberal. In Mississippi, ads against Democrat Travis Childers also tied him to Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
The efforts failed, putting Democrats in House seats the GOP had considered safe, and sending waves of panic through Republican circles nationwide.
In the third race, in Obama's home state of Illinois, Democrat Bill Foster ran ads showing the senator endorsing him, and he claimed the seat long held by former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, a Republican.
Obama said the outcomes bode well for his expected race against Republican John McCain this fall, although he acknowledged the power of rumors that are spread mainly through the Internet about his faith and patriotism. He told reporters this week that he can overcome the falsehoods if he has enough time to campaign in battleground states and let voters get to know him better.
Meanwhile, Obama practically dared Republican congressional candidates to keep linking their Democratic opponents to him.
"The same kinds of tactics that the Republican Party has been employing over the last several election cycles just aren't going to work this time," he told reporters on his charter plane after receiving former rival John Edwards' endorsement Wednesday. "I mean, they did everything they could, right? They ran Wright. They ran Obama. In Louisiana, they ran Pelosi. The same way that in previous election cycles they had run Hillary or other folks they thought would scare off voters. It didn't work."
Obama said Americans want "change in this election," and they especially care about health care, jobs, gasoline prices, college affordability and the Iraq war.
"The Republican Party better be prepared to debate issues," he said, "because that's what people are focused on right now."
Still, Obama faces several challenges, including the need to attract working-class voters who sided heavily with Hillary Rodham Clinton in many states. She beat him by 41 percentage points in West Virginia's primary this week, a shellacking that Obama tried to explain to reporters.
"Part of the issue with West Virginia was, we just didn't have a lot of time to get there" to campaign, he said. "I'm not well-known there. You know, some of these e-mails and rumors that we talked about have penetrated in West Virginia more deeply than they have in some other states. Debunking that stuff is relatively simple if you are on the ground talking to people. If you're not, then it's tough."
Obama said his primary losses to Clinton in Ohio, Pennsylvania and other places do not mean he cannot carry such states in November against McCain.
"I would just take a look at where the national polls are right now," he said. "We're beating McCain handily, we're doing really well among independents. There may be concerns among some voters because they don't know me that well. And I think that the longer we campaign, and the better they get to know me and my agenda, the better we'll do."
So, if Republican attack ads lead to Republican defeats, why wouldn’t Hussein Obama welcome them? What’s he worried about?
LOL. Indeed!
The nerve of this guy!!!!
That nasty racist he calls a "spiritual guide" is reason alone why Obama is terrible for America.
Obama obviously missed the lesson about how a man is the company he keeps.
Looks like those cigarettes and campaign problems are catching up with him.
Obama precriticizes... about not criticizing.
“We want to make Obamy daddy happy, now, don’t we? After all, Hitler was made happy by white boy, so now white boy must make sick Obamy happy”
Let me add a LOL! Barry Mohammed’s arrogant attitude is going to be only a part of his political downfall and slide into total irrelevance. Obamarosa will play another role as well.
Hillary already defined the working class as white Americans...but not a peep out of Obama or the working people who are not white...this presidential race is entertaining...more pop corn....
O.K. Sweetie
I've been urging all my friends to look carefully down ballot from the presidential race and get out for good candidates on the "farm team". I've stated before that if Mememecain picks a strong conservative for VP, I'd look at him again, but I'm not so sure. He hates us and such a VP pick would be window dressing.
Obama's in good shape there because the Stupid Party wants to agree with the RATS not debate them.
There is so much ammunition against this guy that you could run 30 minute attack ads and never repeat yourself and never utter an untruth.
If McCain just runs a few ads that tell the truth then Obama will be toast.
There are some short videos on youtube where Obama’s own words are incredibly damning...McCain should just run the youtube vids.
Sorry, but I didn’t spend 4 years in the Air Force serving the country I love and working most of my adult life to educate my sons, just to “hand the country over” to the forces of evil. My family’s efforts are being directed toward getting good, solid conservatives elected to office, no matter what the office.
What is it about the Democrat Party, that it throws up one narcissistic, power-mad creep after another? With Clinton, Gore, Obama; it's all about them. The Earth revolves around them. Why and how can people vote time after time for these nutcases?
Read Friederich Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom”. In that fairly short book he tells us why socialism will always fail, and points out specifically that people who want power are almost always the very ones you don’t want to get it. They want power because they have a view of how life and society should be, and they intend to make us all hew to that vision, no matter how wrong or destructive it may be.
Obama’s own attack ad...all in his own words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl32Y7wDVDs
What is the big deal about losing these races??? Wasn’t the fact that there is so much more interest in the Democratic race that more Democrats were voting and thus the Democrat won these elections? What am I missing?
Obama is beginning to morph into that other neighborhood organizer, Al Sharpton.
“Part of the issue with West Virginia was, we just didn’t have a lot of time to get there” to campaign, he said. “I’m not well-known there.”
This is the biggest BS lie I’ve ever heard this clown utter. Who in America doesn’t know this bonehead? My 70 year old mother who despises politics knows of Obama, and she told me she’s going to be the first one in line to vote for McCain in November. As to the Repub defeats in Illinois, Louisianna and Mississippi:
Illinois - Oberweis was a terrible candidate for our side, he is our perenial loser in that State, plus that district had Hastert burnout.
Louisianna - Another horrible candidate for our side, he ran one of the worst non-existent media campaigns I’ve ever seen. The dem ran as a pro-life, pro-gun right wing conservative, and he did all he could to distance himself from Obama and Pelosi, he convinced the locals he was not a left wing idealogue in the mold of the aforementioned, and it worked.
Mississippi - We had a great candidate in Mississippi in Davis, but he emerged bloodied after a bitter primary contest. His dem opponent, Childers, ran as far away from Obama and Pelosi as he could, in addition to being as pro-life and pro-gun as Davis. But, in Mississippi Childers was better able to connect with Bubba because after he successfully distanced himself from the lefties we tried to wrap around his neck, he talked about jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs. It worked well.
We need to go forward nationally connecting all dem candidates to Obama and his radical policies and friends, but we also need to talk about the economy and jobs and how we’re going to fix it, because if we don’t we’re up sh*t creek without a paddle.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.