Senator John McCain has done “all he can” to stop an attack ad against Barack Obama from airing in North Carolina but the ad will air anyway. This is raising two points for discussion: If McCain is to be believed, then he is incapable of influencing operatives that represent the GOP base, which means a President McCain would be a flaccid figurehead fending off blows from an increasingly partisan Congress that is pummelled by powerful 527 and other special interest groups.
Sen. Obama is on the ropes needing a combination that transcends politics as usual and knocks out four formidable opponents: McCain, the Clintons, and the media that is discussing and airing the ad that has yet to air in North Carolina, the same media that is also busy trotting out experts to interpret comments made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright during an interview on Bill Moyers Journal which airs tonight on PBS.
Obama’s fourth opponent, the GOP attack dog that McCain claims he cannot influence, is in general election mode and its spending capabilities are presumed to be at least in the hundreds of millions:
CBS News: Amid Negative Ads, McCain Claims High Road
The North Carolina spot wasn’t the only ad to surface this week over which a presidential campaign has no control. Floyd Brown, the producer of the famous “Willie Horton” ad that helped defeat Michael Dukakis, unveiled a 60-second anti-Obama spot called “Victims.” The spot opens with an announcer detailing the gang-related murders of three Chicago residents in 2001.
“That same year, a Chicago state senator named Barack Obama voted against expanding the death penalty for gang-related murders,” says the ad’s female narrator, as ominous music plays in the background. “When the time came to be tough, Obama chose to be weak. So the question is, can a man so weak in the war on gangs be trusted in the war on terror?”
Brown’s ad, which he says will air in North Carolina and elsewhere, has thus far has not attracted much attention. But with outside groups on both sides gearing up for massive spending to influence the 2008 campaign – in the 2004 election cycle, according to the Campaign Finance Institute, the outside groups known as 527s raised more than $400 million – “Victims” looks like a harbinger of things to come.
Secondly, this is good news for the Clintons, and House Democratic Whip James Clyburn has issued some very strong statements regarding the couple’s campaign of party destruction:
Richard Cowan: “Top House Democrat denounces Clinton campaign tactics“
WASHINGTON – “Scurrilous” and “disingenuous” were among the words a top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives used on Thursday to describe Hillary Clinton’s campaign tactics in her bid to defeat Barack Obama for their party’s presidential nomination.
House Democratic Whip James Clyburn, of South Carolina and the highest ranking black in Congress, also said he has heard speculation that Clinton is staying in the race only to try to derail Obama and pave the way for her to make another White House run in 2012.
“I heard something, the first time yesterday (in South Carolina), and I heard it on the (House) floor today, which is telling me there are African Americans who have reached the decision that the Clintons know that she can’t win this. But they’re hell-bound to make it impossible for Obama to win” in November, Clyburn told Reuters in an interview.
McCain can’t be criticised as an ineffective party leader as the Clintons run amok. Why do they have any support within the party? Can it be defined and the divisions resolved?
The Clintons may have always known they cannot win in ’08, but why would they still believe they can win in 2012? They are an animated political footnote that could possibly still influence the measure of negativity taken by historians’ yardsticks but their reign as Democrat party leaders and national leaders is fast approaching the ugliest of ends.
Obama needs to reveal a defense game so incredible it instills in his strongest opponents solid respect if not support. He could continue to cross his fingers and hope the inestimable forces aligned against him will be scorned by the majority; then he will be a footnote, too.