NRA may have to bag Election Day ads opposing Obama

The National Rifle Association hopes to deliver anti-Barack Obama advertising blasts to thousands of doorsteps on Election Day.

The Fairfax-based gun lobby has contacted newspapers in Virginia and other battleground states about wrapping their home-delivered products on Nov. 4 in a plastic bag that is said to read: "Vote for Freedom... Defeat Obama."

The Richmond Times-Dispatch leaders initially told employees that the paper intended to accept the ads, according to sources in the company.

But when contacted about it this week, the newspaper's strategic marketing director, Frazier Millner, said the Richmond newspaper "will not run the ad... for the NRA on Election Day or any other day."

NRA spokeswoman Rachel Parsons declined to discuss the plastic bags or media strategies other than to say the group uses "innovative means of getting our message out, in addition to traditional TV, radio and print ads."

The NRA has endorsed Republican presidential nominee John McCain, and the group's political action committee has established the www.gunbanobama.com Web site, which say s Obama, a Democrat, "would be the most anti-gun president in American history."

This season, the group has sponsored print and video advertisements opposing Obama; anti-Obama independent expenditures by the NRA this cycle total $1.8 million, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The Obama campaign describes NRA claims as false attacks that distort the Illinois senator's record as a supporter of Second Amendment rights.

Although the plastic sleeves are a somewhat unorthodox vehicle for political ads, this would not be the first time the NRA has used that tactic.

A similar technique was used by the gun lobby in Montana in 2006 to support a Republican seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate.

That year, The Associated Press reported, seven or eight Montana newspapers were draped in plastic covers expressing support for Sen. Conrad Burns in the days leading up to an election he ultimately lost.

The current plastic bag campaign is something of a departure for the NRA, which more often targets gun-owning voters with its political messages, said Brigham Young University political science professor Quin Monson.

"In the past, the NRA has been particularly effective about mobilizing their members and like-minded individuals," said Monson, assistant director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at the Utah school. "What they risk here is motivating someone who is for gun control to get out and vote for Obama."

The risk for a newspaper that runs the plastic bag ad, according to media ethicist Kelly McBride, is that it may give readers a reason to question its objectivity.

"If your wrap on Election Day is portraying one particular point of view, that's going to be pretty damaging to your credibility," said McBride, ethics group leader for the Poynter Institute, a school for professional journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"I think it would be hard for voters, in that moment, to discern whether this is the paper's point of view or someone else's," she added. "You don't want to do something on Election Day that essentially alienates your readers."

Similar considerations factored into The Pilot's decision to reject the ad, said company business development manager Alan Levenstein.

Because it takes about six weeks to print the plastic bags, permitting a group with one view to purchase that space could deny a group with an opposing view a chance to buy the same space before the election, Levenstein said.

"We want to make sure that we provide equity for all sides, make sure that there is a level playing field," he said. "We want to make sure that we don't look, as a newspaper, that we're endorsing one viewpoint or another."

As a matter of policy, The Pilot would sell space to candidates and interest groups of all persuasions in its print pages, which unlike the plastic bags can accommodate multiple ads in one edition.

The NRA is hardly alone in the effort to deliver partisan messages to the voting public.

Scores of lobbying and issue-advocacy groups from across the political spectrum have spent advertising dollars to influence the outcome on Nov. 4.

"A lot of groups make ads," noted Jacob Neiheisel, deputy director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, a nonpartisan academic research group based at the University of Wisconsin that tracks televised political ads.

In this cycle, ads from outside groups "have been relatively quiet," partly because of the cost to broadcast them, said Neiheisel, which may be one reason that special interests such as the NRA are "focusing on the ground war, where they can get a little more targeting."

The wrap
The National Rifle Association has contacted newspapers in Virginia and other battleground states about wrapping their home-delivered products on Nov. 4 in a plastic bag that is said to read: “Vote for Freedom … Defeat Obama.” That ad proposal was rejected by The Virginian-Pilot.

THREATSWATCH.org - blog: "ENTERING A NEW ERA" by Jay Fraser (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "However, to consider that the War on Terrorism and its battles are over simply because the United States has not had to withstand another direct attack on our soil would be naive.") (October 28, 2008, 6:19 pm)

NEWSMAX.com: "EXPECT FEWER LIBERTIES IF OBAMA WINS" by David Limbaugh (COMMENTARY SNIPPET: "I am sincerely worried that if Obama wins, the checks and balances incorporated into our Constitution may not be enough to prevent a radical and irreversible diminution of our individual liberties because a confluence of factors has emerged to create a climate conducive to fundamental change. These are the factors:") (October 28, 2008, 8:40 am)

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE: "OBAMA'S FRIENDSHIP WITH KHALIDI" by Mona Charen (October 28, 2008, 12:00 am)

DANIEL PIPES.org (HUDSON INSTITUTE): "PLO ACKNOWLEDGES: STILL AT WAR WITH ISRAEL" by Daniel Pipes (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Yasir Arafat may have shaken Yitzhak Rabin's hand in 1993 and signed solemn declarations about ending the war to eliminate Israel, but late last month, in a New York City courtroom, the Palestine Liberation Organization formally confirmed that it still sees terrorism against Israelis as legitimate acts of war.") (October 28, 2008)

FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS.org: "BARACK OBAMA'S ANTI-ISRAEL ALLIANCES" by Rachel Neuwirth (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Rashid Khalidi was the director of the PLO's press agency WAFA from 1976 to 1982, at a time when the PLO was conducting a massacre of 37 Israeli civilians in a bus on Israel's coastal road, the brutal murder of a four-year-old Israeli girl in Nahariya, and numerous other terrorist killings of Israeli civilians. The PLO was also waging a brutal war against the Lebanese Christian community during this period, and carried out numerous massacres of Lebanese Christians; the worst of these was the killing of about 500 people in the village of Damour.") (October 24, 2008)

Elections.FOX NEWS.com: "LA TIMES REFUSES TO RELEASE TAPE OF OBAMA PRAISING CONTROVERSIAL ACTIVIST Video of farewell party for alleged PLO worker shows Obama toasting 'friend and dinner companion' with questionable past." (October 28, 2008)

Video: "Hume on LA TIMES Video Linking Obama & Khalidi" (October 28, 2008)

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[Post no. 8] - ARCHIVES - Topic: BIDEN & OBAMA (aka B & O) (October 28, 2008 -- Click Here TO VIEW MY ARCHIVED LINKS.)

JEFF HEAD.com - Videos: "THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - Obama In His & His Supporters Own Words"

At this point who cares. Barack Obama has spent over 600 million. Whatever the reform was supposed to do it clearly didn’t do well enough

But when contacted about it this week, the newspaper's strategic marketing director, Frazier Millner, said the Richmond newspaper "will not run the ad... for the NRA on Election Day or any other day."

He then added, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to cash this $10,000 check from the 0bama campaign."

Its amazing that the same newspapers that are losing money and subscribers year after year, are declining to accept needed advertising dollars from the NRA.

Frig the Newspapers, Hire UPS and FED-EX to do it, forget about those weenies @ the Post Office their in the tank for the OBamster.

One paper rejecting the ad campaign doesn’t sound like much a setback. Are other papers allowing it. As bad of a shape most papers are in these days, one would think they could take in all of the as revenue possible.

The MSM is treating anti-Obama material like it treated anti-Mohammed material a few years ago, and probably for the same reasons.

I may be mistaken about this, but I thought one of the objectives of McCain’s campaign finance reform bill was to prohibit tv ads by groups like the NRA a month or more before the election. Is that not true?

In 5-4 Vote, Supreme Court Rejects Election Ad Restrictions

By a 5-4 vote, the Court said that the 2003 law's ban on pre-election ads that mention candidates by name and are paid for directly by corporations and unions was unconstitutional -- at least as it was applied to the advertisements at issue in the case before it. The ban applied during the 30 days before a primary and the 60 days before a general election.

Well, if the NRA can’t politic against Obama then Kahdafi, Castro and Armaninutjob shouldn’t be aloud to politic for Obama.

So there!

Well, I think there is a double standard on this.
Candidates are also supposed to reveal the sourse of their contributions. It is incredible and illegal that Obama does not want to reveal where this money comes from. Millions and millions from unknow benefactors? That makes me remember the guy with millions of Chavez´dollars in a suitcase to help the socialist presidential Argentinian candidate win.

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