Back on May 23rd, I made some predictions about the choices for the convention sites. Now it looks like I, as usual, was right – at least 50% right so far… The Republicans have picked the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul for their convention. The Democrats still have to pick Denver for me to be 2 for 2, but I have no doubt they’ll deliver for me regardless of what the Unions say.
Archive for: September, 2006
“Negative” Campaigning
I started to write a post about negative campaigning this morning because of an article I saw in the LA Times (more on this in a minute). I decided not to, but this post (and the subsequent comment) at GOPProgress.com. The post concerns a “negative” ad in the race for NC-13. The incumbent has supported a bunch of GLBT and sex related studies through the NIH, while opposing body armor for our troops. The comment says it’s not really negative to highlight such votes.
That brings me to the LA Times piece.
Sinister characters are scheming in a smoke-filled room, in a television ad that depicts big campaign contributors to Bob Casey, a Democrat running for Senate in Pennsylvania.
After detailing the legal troubles that each donor faces ‚Äî including an FBI investigation and jail time ‚Äî the somber narrator asks, “Where does Casey hold his campaign meetings?”
The camera pulls back to show the cigar-smoking “campaign team” ‚Äî behind bars.
That graphic, personal attack on the candidate challenging Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) is a particularly sharp-edged example of a key strategy in the Republican political arsenal as the party fights to keep control of Congress: going negative and personal, early and often.
In the case of Liz’s post, I agree with her commenter – that isn’t a negative ad. In the case of the Santorum spot, I’d probably say the same. The LA Times seems to disagree. They describe the anti-Casey ad as a “graphic, personal attack on the candidate”.
Is pointing out a campaign’s financial ties to convicted or alleged criminals a “negative, personal” attack? I don’t believe it is.
I posted last week asking if campaigns were responsible for every nut job that supports their campaign. In further discussions with friends, someone suggested that there is a distinct difference between a wacko that endorses you (even one that posts their endorsement to a website) and a campaign accepting a contribution from that same wacko.
If your supporters are racist, and they say they’re voting for you, the campaign has no control over that. If Osama bin Laden released a video supporting your campaign, you would have no responsibility for it (though it would likely kill your campaign).
If you accept money from people, and there is a pattern of corruption amongst those people, that’s fair game – especially if you don’t immediately return it.
But this leaves me with the question “What is a Negative Ad?”
A Quiz I Can Relate To
People send me these “Which Friends Character Are You?” quizzes all the time, and occasionally I find them amusing, but mostly they’re annoying. Today, however, I found one that has meaning for me. This little quiz tells you to which level of hell you will be banished.
As I expected, it told me that not many good things are waiting for me… Sadly, I just answered the questions honestly, and actually thought I might get off with a 5 or 6…. Apparently not…
The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Eigth Level of Hell – the Malebolge! Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 1 – Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | Very Low |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | Very High |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Extreme |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | Very High |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Very High |
| Level 6 – The City of Dis (Heretics) | Very High |
| Level 7 (Violent) | High |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Extreme |
| Level 9 – Cocytus (Treacherous) | High |
Clinton and NIE
The big news of the last two days seems to be the meltdown of Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday and the “leaked” details of the National Intelligence Estimate. The Hill has a column by Dick Morris (currently unavailable due to server error) indicating Clinton’s behavior was more the rule than the exception and challenging his assertions that he was awake at the wheel.
Why didn’t the CIA and FBI realize the extent of bin Laden’s involvement in terrorism? Because Clinton never took the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center sufficiently seriously. He never visited the site and his only public comment was to caution against “over-reaction.” In his pre-9/11 memoirs, George Stephanopoulos confirms that he and others on the staff saw it as a “failed bombing” and noted that it was far from topic A at the White House. Rather than the full-court press that the first terror attack on American soil deserved, Clinton let the investigation be handled by the FBI on location in New York without making it the national emergency it actually was.
The Washington Times and NY Post react with Condi and further info to discredit the claims Clinton made. (Does anyone care to wager the mainstream media will challenge his claims like this?)
On the NIE front, the Washington Post might as well have issued a special edition with wall-to-wall NIE coverage. E.J. Dionne uses it to bolster his argument that the protesters of today are no ‘hippie radicals’ and the GOP faces trouble in November.
That is why news over the weekend of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is especially troublesome for Republican electoral chances. By finding that the war in Iraq has encouraged global terrorism and spawned a new generation of Islamic radicals, the report by 16 government intelligence services undercuts the administration’s central argument that the Iraq war has made the United States safer.
Michael Abramowitz and Jonathan Weisman continue the WaPo NIE highlight reel and cover the Democrats use of the report in their electoral strategy.
Democratic lawmakers yesterday seized on elements of a new classified intelligence assessment as validation of their long-standing position that the Iraq war has been a distraction from the broader war against terrorists, seeing the new study as an opportunity to undermine President Bush’s determined offensive to turn terrorism to political advantage in the midterm elections.
What I find interesting about the Democrat tactic is the fact that they’re arguing the Iraq War is a distraction from terrorism, but ignoring the fact that our presence in Afghanistan – widely perceived to be legitimate by comparison – is also fueling the fire. We’re coming under increasing attack in Afghanistan, and that is an ‘approved’ front in the war on terror.
If the difference between the two is our internal comfort level, someone should let the insurgents know they need to lay off in Kabul because our presence has been self-justified.
The Wall Street Journal probably has the best solution. They suggest the government simply declassify the report – allowing for redaction or summary of sensitive information that would reveal sources or methods.
It’s impossible to know how true this report is, of course, since the NIE itself hasn’t been leaked. The reports are based on what sources claim the NIE says, but we don’t know who those sources are and what motivations they might have. Since their spin coincides rather conveniently with the argument made by Democratic critics of the war, and since this leak has also conveniently sprung in high campaign season, wise readers will be skeptical.
Releasing the NIE is probably the best idea. It’s not like most of what’s in the report would be news to anyone.
The whole debate on the NIE is actually a good case study in how to reduce a problem. The argument seems to be whether the bad guys like us less today than they did before we went into Iraq. They had killed 3,000 Americans in one morning before we went into the Middle East – claiming to still be offended by our efforts in Iraq circa 1991 and our continuing presence in Saudi Arabia – but all of that is lost.
The whole discussion has come down to a debate over “degrees of hate”. It’s kind of stupid if you think about it. Does it matter how much they hate us? If they were flying planes into buildings before they really, really hated us, doesn’t that tell us that we are even more justified in trying to eradicate the threat?
I think it does.
Comment Spam
If you have a blog of your own, you know the huge pain in the ass that is comment spam. I have been looking for a good plugin for WordPress that would allow me to block comment spammers by IP address, and thought I had finally found one. As I was configuring it, I discovered something fascinating – about 90% of my comment spam was coming through the same two network providers.
The offending providers are:
RIPE Network Coordination Centre
P.O. Box 10096
Amsterdam, NL 1001EBAsia Pacific Network Information Centre
PO Box 2131
Milton, QLD, AU 4064
I’m pointing this out for any other bloggers who happen to be fighting this battle. Maybe if we shame these bastards into policing their networks a little better, the rest of us won’t have to invest so much time in the battle of the spam. For anyone interested, I would be glad to provide the IP address blocks I’ve blocked. I’ll also post periodically to let you know how it’s working.