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NEWS ABOUT: negative campaigning

Mac Should Muzzle Staffers, Drop Robocalls, Talk Security

Remind voters why they admired him: Kristol

(Newser) - William Kristol has some advice for John McCain: “When you’re in a hole, stop digging.” In a recent poll, 64% of respondents said they believe McCain spends more time attacking Barack Obama than making his own case. The senator ought to pull his negative ads, robocalls, and... More »

Swing Voters Don't Like 'Hothead' McCain

Crisis turns voters towards 'cool and collected' Obama

(Newser) - Doubts over John McCain's disposition are pushing undecided voters Barack Obama's way, according to the Los Angeles Times. Swing voters interviewed by the newspaper say McCain's negative body language over the last few weeks and his "hothead" outbursts have given them strong misgivings—as did his snap decision to... More »

McCain Had a '60s Radical Friend of His Own

Made friends with ex-Vietnam protestor

(Newser) - John McCain has been busily exploiting and distorting Barack Obama’s passing relationship with '60s radical Bill Ayers, but McCain himself had a much closer relationship with another '60s radical, David Ifshin, writes Joe Klein of Time. Ifshin was an anti-Vietnam radical whom many people accused of treason after he... More »

Bill Ayers Is a Nice Guy

Republicans are waving the bloody shirt at a model citizen

(Newser) - In a desperate attempt to link Barack Obama to a 1960s culture war he’s too young to remember, John McCain has spent his last shred of political capital attacking Bill Ayers, Obama’s supposed terrorist pal. “I can personally attest to the idiocy of it all,” writes... More »

Joe McCain Slams Big Bro's Handlers

Let John McCain be John McCain, pleads letter

(Newser) - O brother, where art thou? Joe McCain's frustration with the direction of his older brother's campaign has erupted into an angry letter to strategists, reports the Baltimore Sun. The former journalist, who has been stumping for his brother in swing states, slammed the campaign's "counter-productive" strategy of too tightly... More »

Obama Lead Up to 14 Points Amid Mac Attacks: Poll

Poll finds Obama ahead 53% to 14% after McCain blows fail to land

(Newser) - John McCain's flurry of attacks against Barack Obama has done the Republican more harm than his opponent, according to the latest New York Times/CBS poll. Obama now commands a 53% to 39% lead, with voters seeing McCain as running the more negative campaign of the two, the poll found. More... More »

In Crisis, Ads Are Just Noise

McCain attacks, Obama saturates, and no one cares

(Newser) - With the election weeks away, the airwaves are thick with campaign ads. McCain has gone almost completely negative, while Obama has used his huge war chest to unleash an unprecedented barrage of messages—and none of it matters, strategists tell the Washington Post. “Most people are looking at their... More »

Facing a Wipeout, McCain Tones It Down

GOP nominee reverts to 'happy warrior' of the primary

(Newser) - Down in the polls and facing brutal criticism from his own party, John McCain is returning to an old persona: the "happy warrior" that won the GOP primary. Tempering attacks that have proven counterproductive, McCain presented himself as a prepared, tested leader who could bring forceful leadership to... More »

'Dysfunctional' Campaign Must Go: Kristol

Attacks haven't and won't work, so it's time to go back to basics

(Newser) - John McCain’s campaign isn’t working, and if he’s smart, he’ll “junk the whole thing and start over,” William Kristol writes in the New York Times. McCain’s current “combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic,” the high-profile conservative argues.... More »

Smears Could Cost McCain Fla.

Risky strategy imperils prez bid

(Newser) - The Sunshine State is looking cloudy for John McCain, whose risky moves could cost him Florida, just as Rudy Giuliani's posturing sank him in the primary, novelist Carl Hiaasen writes for the Miami Herald. Polls show McCain forfeiting his lead, and his running mate isn't helping. Sarah Palin, Hiaasen snipes,... More »

Furor Ignites After Ga. Rep. Blasts McCain

Civil rights icon Lewis backs off Wallace comparison, but not far

(Newser) - A day after igniting tensions in both campaigns, civil rights icon John Lewis sought to soften remarks that seemed to compare John McCain to segregationist George Wallace, Politico reports. “It was not my intention or desire to do so,” Lewis said last night. “My statement was a... More »

Forget Sticks, Stones; Her Words Are Bullets

Palin's Obama rhetoric fans racist flames

(Newser) - The McCain campaign has crossed the line from negative campaigning to “inciting vigilantism” with racist tactics that should raise alarms about Barack Obama’s safety, writes Frank Rich in the New York Times. Particularly troubling is Sarah Palin’s repeated linking of Obama to “terrorists” and her refusal... More »

McCain Drops Ayers Bomb for First Time

Candidate rips Obama's 'truthfulness' at angry rally

(Newser) - John McCain has attacked Barack Obama for his links to political radical  Bill Ayers for the first time, Politico reports. McCain, who had previously left the assault to Sarah Palin, told a raucous Wisconsin rally that booed every mention of Obama's name that the issue went to the heart of... More »

Hey, GOP: Let's Emulate Obama's Cool

Attack ads worked in 2004. That's not where we're at: Frum

(Newser) - David Frum plans to vote for John McCain, but with the economy in ruin, anyone who thinks the GOP can win “by banging on about William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright is...to put it mildly...severely under-estimating the electoral importance of pocketbook issues.” These desperate attacks “are... More »

Facing Actual Voters Can Be Tall Order

Candidates won't be as easily able to duck pointed questions in tonight's debate format

(Newser) - The presidential candidates will be walking into a lion’s den tonight, forced to face those most dangerous of creatures: undecided voters. The town-hall debate could be a “snooze-fest,” writes John Dickerson on Slate, but there’s also a chance “Ponytail Guy”—the town-haller who famously... More »

McCain Gets Testy in Des Moines

Chides newspaper editors for questions on Palin, truth of ads

(Newser) - John McCain showed his combative side in a videotaped interview with the Des Moines Register yesterday, taking umbrage at questions about whether Sarah Palin might be inexperienced and whether some of his campaign ads might have stretched the truth. “I have always had 100%, absolute truth, and that's been... More »

Noonan: What if Neither Man Is Up to the Job?

Things will get mean out there

(Newser) - The election is about to enter a dark, mean period writes Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal, as the country confronts a terrifying possibility: What if neither man is up for the job? Thanks to the economy, anxiety is at a fever pitch, but “I haven’t heard... More »

McCain's Lies Cross the Line

Senator has run a dirty campaign

(Newser) - Politicians often stretch the truth, but John McCain has taken things to a new level, writes Joe Klein in Time. Journalists usually play softball when criticizing candidates’ falsehoods, but now even the restrained New York Times editorial board is calling McCain a liar. McCain’s campaign has been a “... More »

McCain Sheds Honor in Heat of Campaign

Columnist, a longtime fan of the straight-shooting senator, sorely disappointed

(Newser) - John McCain's dishonesty in this race has turned him into the kind of politician the candidate once professed to hate, writes Richard Cohen—a one-time fan of the Arizona senator—in the Washington Post. McCain’s lies—most blatantly expressed on The View in response to a question about misleading... More »

McCain Running 'Dishonorable' Campaign: Ad

In face of rising GOP tide, Obama camp sharpening attacks

(Newser) - Barack Obama has launched a new ad accusing John McCain of running a “disgraceful, dishonorable campaign,” part of a wider pushback against Republican attacks, the Washington Post reports. With McCain pulling even in the polls, the campaign held a series of internal strategy meetings, including a rare Sunday... More »

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