It's the last gasp of a failing campaign, Michael. Hillary knows she can't win on credibility or on the issues, so she's throwing all the mud she can and hoping some of it sticks.

I suppose it's really sad to see, but considering the political company she keeps, it's not at all surprising.

How do you sleep at night after shamelessly parroting the political trick of spin that your candidate practices at the same time he denounces it? Even if this were an "negative ad" how is your attacking Sen. Clinton for it instead of "explaining [his] vision for the country" any better? Obama a new kind of politician? My flabby ass!

Unless you can document that the descriptions of Obama's record as described in the ad are lies, no objective person could charactize this ad as "negative." There's a difference between that and simply having voters told facts your candidate doesn't want them to hear. OBAMA is responsible for HIS actions not her.

18 debates so far? More of what Bilerico contributor Irene Monroe calls "Obama playing us stupid." Do you really have so little respect for Bilerico readers? Has there been more than ONE one-on-one debate since Edwards withdrew? And the further back one goes the more were involved—Edwards, Biden, Richardson, Dodd—all the way back to Gravel, Kucinich, and Chris Crocker [just testing]. As such, we rarely heard the responses of BOTH Obama and Sen. Clinton to more than a few of the same questions. Add those instances together when they did, then deduct the redundancies, and you'd barely have the equivalent of one other actual debate besides the one preceding Super Tuesday. You say 18? I'll give you two—sorta.

I could flood you with links to commentators far and wide pointing to the REAL reason Obama is hiding: while Sen. Clinton is better in debates than speeches, Obama more often than not is as bad in debates as he is good in pre-scripted speechifying where he can control the microphone and can't be challenged to explain something he just said, facts he's distorted, undeserved bows he's taken because they're based on lies.

For example, while mainstream media probably is indifferent to, let alone aware of, his bald-faced lie to “The Advocate” in October about cosponsoring and passing the gay rights bill in Illinois when he did neither, they’ve finally begun reporting on a similar one he’s told about passing Illinois legislation regulating the nuclear industry:

QUOTE: “He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was ‘the only nuclear legislation that I've passed.' 'I just did that last year’, he said, to murmurs of approval. ... But, contrary to Mr. Obama’s comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.” – NY Times, 2/3/08]

SEE: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03exelon.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1203129690-RHJBosNJsQNAuqepWmsY9A

I'd hide behind the curtain, from as many debates as I could, too, if I realized that a few in MSM were beginning to finally wake up from Obama Poppies-induced sleep and might expose me before millions of voters as the fake Wizard that I really am.

"Come out, come out wherever you are! And meet the young con man who fell from a star!"

What's so bad about this ad? Is what's in there untruthful? The items I know something about are correct, but maybe I'm missing something on the others.

I don't really see what's wrong with running a campaign running an ad saying that their candidate would be better for the position in comparison to the other person.

It's the definition of a negative ad. It says negative things about the opponent. Usual political ads say positive things about the candidate running the ads. The focus of this ad is Obama not Clinton. Textbook.

No wonder Hillary Clinton is desperate to change the rules and seat the FL and MI delegates.

Barack Obama enjoys his first statistically significant lead in the Gallup tracking poll, 49% to 42%, over Sen. Hillary Clinton. Additionally, the 49% support for Obama represents the high point for him in the daily survey.

In the immortal words of the late, great Ann Richards, "I think it's time to stick a fork in Hillary because she's done."

>>>It's the definition of a negative ad. It says negative things about the opponent. Usual political ads say positive things about the candidate running the ads. The focus of this ad is Obama not Clinton. Textbook.

Poppypenis! It states facts about both candidates.

>>>>>Barack Obama enjoys his first statistically significant lead in the Gallup tracking poll, 49% to 42%

In the immortal words of Lincoln [?]—"you can fool some of the people all the time."

All it takes is a combination of being willing to lie about your record with such cheeky ease no one stops to think to fact check him, being a "fresh face" while running against a candidate whom others have spent decades and millions demonizing before you even announce, substituting speeches for substance, and exploiting "the Magic Negro Syndrome" but when that's only working with "Love Me I'm A Liberal" whites while your own people yawn at the mention of your name turning to playing the race card like the best Las Vegas dealer then successfully Swift Boating your opponent with the same charge.

Somewhere Karl Rove is laughing.

"explain"? 'Scuse me?

Your definition of "push polls" relates exactly to my point which is CONTEXT. Michael Crawford captioned his propaganda "When all else fails—go negative" while yet again failing to conscientiously disclose his official connection with the Obama campaign.

In addition to leaving that important point out, there are two factual [at least to those not choosing to let their hatred for Hillary As Hillary override their native intelligence] problems with the title: 1. if "all else" was failing Hillary wouldn't be getting a single vote, wouldn't still be so close to the Dali Obama. 2. "go negative" is much broader than simply writing, "run a negative ad." It is a smear against an alleged smear.

Which, of course, one could say is a desperate reaction to the failure so far to convince voters to stop voting for Hillary and crown him by acclamation. Why do Obama reps need to say negative things about Sen. Clinton.

Apparently, he is not among your "most candidates [who] have decided to *gasp* focus on themselves instead of their opponent"? And, to that assertion generally, I ask, "In what universe?"

MB~
Few things:

1. Some people are going to vote for Obama instead of Clinton. That doesn't make them idiots. Calling them idiots isn't going to make them feel like changing. Blowing a fuse every time they speak isn't going to change that.

2. It's a negative ad. I personally don't see anything wrong with that, but it is a negative ad. Arguing that it contains some aspects of a positive ad, as all negative ads do, doesn't change that.

3. Just a question: is there anything a black person can say or do in your book that isn't "playing the race card"? I know we've heard that Vegas imagery from you a couple times before on this site, and I don't really see how it applies to Obama here.

Alex,

1. With all due respect, equating anything I wrote with "calling them idiots" is reduction to absurdity.

2. I don't imagine that I'm going to change the minds of anyone who already supports Obama. I write with the hope of influencing those who have not decided; to counteract the mush they are often served by both official members of the Obama campaign and random individuals.

3. My fuse blowing, as you characterize it, is hardly simply in response to Obama supporters expressing that support. I have tried to always speak to the issues. If I have failed, I apologize.

But it does enrage me when that expression includes myths or misrepresentation or half-truths or outright lies to justify that support. From the spin that started this thread to someone some time back attacking Sen. Clinton for expressing concern about anyone trans being in influential positions in public schools when, in fact, it was Obama who had once said that—to a frequent poster repeatedly posting the myth that Obama had authored and passed LGBT rights legislation in Illinois when he has done neither—to guest editorials and posts in threads started by others such as both of those by Eric Stern which were permeated with half-truths and deliberate misrepresentations.

Some might be interested to know that after I documented the facts of the functionally harmless reality of DOMA Section 2 and Obama's actual support of a state's right to legally ban any kind of same gender relationship—both facts from the mouth of his own supporter Harvard Constitutional Law expert Professor Lawrence Tribe—in an exchange with Mr. Stern in a thread started by Sara Whitman, two weeks later Mr. Stern was one of three cosigners of a "Washington Blade" guest piece in which he/they once again attack Sen. Clinton solely on the basis of claims that contradict Tribe. Their dishonest hit piece is still available online at washingtonblade.com.

4. My reference to “the race card” had nothing to do with “here” if you meant what Michael Crawford wrote in this thread, but was an amplification of my quote attributed to Lincoln that was in response to someone quoting Ann Richards to diss in the most disrespectful way Sen. Clinton.

As for your unfortunate question, “is there anything a black person can say or do in your book that isn't ‘playing the race card’," I’m sorry you have missed my frequent praise here, across several threads, for Bayard Rustin; that you missed my thanking Irene Monroe for first leading me to look behind Obama’s curtain, as it were; even my agreement yesterday with the essay by Michael Crawford himself on “hot asses’” and that you forgot responding yourself to my post which included extensive praise for Jesse Jackson [despite the fact that he is an Obama supporter].

Despite my evolved preference for Sen. Clinton, I acknowledge that she is FAAARRRR from perfect. Despite my denunciations of Sen. Obama for things he has said and done which led me to choose to support her in the primary over him, and of those who ignore those facts primarily because they are in love with him and/or in hate for her, I will vote for him if he gets the nomination. And I will continue to try to write with as much specificity as possible.

Thank you.