Barack Obama has launched a broadside against John McCain’s opposition to abortion rights and moved one of the most divisive issues in modern American politics to the airwaves on a large scale for the first time in this presidential campaign.
Obama’s new radio ad, airing widely in at least seven swing states, tells voters McCain “will make abortion illegal.” It’s airing as McCain courts female voters with the addition of the staunchly anti-abortion governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, to his ticket.
Democrats had, until now, sought to appeal to women primarily on economic issues such as health care and workplace discrimination; abortion rights were hardly mentioned at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last week. But women’s rights groups have been urging Obama to attack McCain on the issue, pointing to polling showing that some women who support McCain think he supports abortion rights. In fact, the Arizona senator has long supported a ban on abortions, with exceptions for victims of rape and incest, and for pregnancies that threaten the life of the mother. Palin has an even firmer anti-abortion stance: She would require rape and incest victims to carry their pregnancies to term.
“Let me tell you: If Roe vs. Wade is overturned, the lives and health of women will be put at risk. That’s why this election is so important,” says the nurse-practitioner who narrates Obama’s ad. “John McCain’s out of touch with women today. McCain wants to take away our right to choose. That’s what women need to understand. That’s how high the stakes are.”
An announcer then claims that “as president, John McCain will make abortion illegal,” before playing an exchange on “Meet the Press” in which McCain told moderator Tim Russert that he favors “a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions.”
“We can’t let John McCain take away our right to choose. We can’t let him take us back,” says the ad.
Richard Land says that picking Palin has given a shot of Red Bull to the Republican base. Well, Obama has just given me a triple shot of espresso with that ad. Let’s roll.
Getting back to progressive work for a minute (I know — dull, dull, dull) here’s an update on the contest we’ve been running all week, from Down With Tyranny:
Last Saturday, we introduced a week-long Blue America contest, “to spotlight nine of our House endorsees this week who may eventually wind up in the program but who need campaign cash to compete effectively now.”
That “now” is the critical word. Ads must be produced now, though they may not appear until later. Time slots and ad spaces must be purchased now, though the ads may not be slated to run until sometime several weeks down the line. Strategies for October and November must be planned now, to get enthusiasm and energy and turnout all revved up for election day. A sudden flood of cash the day before the election is nice, but by then it just goes to pay down the campaign debt. These campaigns need cash, and they need it now.
The contest works like this: Blue America has a special contest contribution website, where every donor who makes a contribution (of any size) will be able to “vote” to see who should receive an extra $5000 contribution from Blue America. This would be in addition to whatever money each candidate receives in direct donations, of course. Russ Warner’s supporters, for example, have already donated over $4,200 to his campaign since Saturday, much of it in $1, $5 and $20 increments! In terms of “votes,” though, Annette Taddeo has taken a slight lead over Russ and Debbie Cook, although both Dennis Shulman and Sam Bennett are starting to move up. All five candidates already have over a $1,000 in contributions on our special contest page, which, as you can see, now has grown to over $15,000 since Saturday.
$5000 may not seem like a lot, when we hear stories about the millions being spent on the presidential races, governor’s contests, and various Senate battles. But for a House race, especially in areas away from major media markets, $5000 can go a long way.
For instance…
A full page newspaper ad in a small district can cost as little as $1000. An extra $5000 means five full page ads. Five ads in one paper, or one ad in five different papers. Either way, that’s some nice publicity.
In a major metropolitan paper, a full page ad in the main news section might run $40,000, but a full page in the local section might run just $6000. A full page ad in a regional network of small papers could run for around $11,000. When the $5000 prize is combined with whatever donations come in to win the contest, that puts that full page ad in the local section within reach, and would be a big step toward what is needed for that regional network ad buy.
Then there’s radio and cable television. According to one person familiar with campaign media advertising rates that I contacted, $5000 paid for a solid, heavy-rotation radio advertising blitz in a medium sized market, and $6000 paid for a week’s worth of cable ads in heavy rotation– some 800+ spots! Remember this effective TV spot Alan Grayson used to beat the heavily favored hack establishment candidate in the Orlando primary last week? You might want to see him running that in honor of Bush rubber stamp Ric Keller from now ’til November. Each of our 9 candidates would like to run spots like that. You can rest assured their Republican opponents will fill the airwaves will deceptive ads blaming them for high gas prices, corruption, gays, abortions… whatever Karl Rove tells them is getting traction.
What else? $5000 would buy a candidate a billboard ad along a major highway in district filled with suburban commuters. That’s lots of eyeballs, every day from now to the election.
Your vote– and your contributions– can make that happen for the candidate that gets you the most excited.
The nine candidates in this Blue America contest are already excited about the possibility, and some have been putting the word out to their supporters about what we’re doing. On their campaign websites you can see more about them, and in some cases, you can see the ads they’d like to give much more distribution, with some financial help from people like you.
Here are the nine Blue America candidates (with links to their sites) that are part of this contest:
Jared Polis (CO-02) – Boulder and Westminster out to Eagle County
Dennis Shulman (NJ-05) – northern New Jersey from Bergen and Passaic around to Warren County
Annette Taddeo (FL-18) – Miami-Dade from Miami Beach and Coral Gables down to Key West
Russ Warner (CA-26) – northeast L.A. suburbans from Rancho Cucamonga to Arcadia
Barry Welsh (IN-06) – east central Indiana centered on Muncie
They need your help, and they need it now. Tell ’em Blue America sent you. One more thing, you can vote as many times as you like but we only count each screen name ONCE for each candidate. If you give Russ Warner $5 and Sam Bennett $500, you just registered one vote for Russ and one vote for Sam. If you give Dennis Shulman $50 in fifty one dollar increments, you just gave Dennis one vote (plus 50 much needed dollars, so… awesome, but save yourself the trouble and donate as one lump sum)
There are 600 donors so far as we publish this– and $15,370 donated. Let’s see if we can bring that up a bit. We’ve invited Rahm Emanuel, Steny Hoyer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Chris Van Hollen, all of whom are charged with electing more Democrats (and all of whom we’ve given tons of press)– to each match the $5,000 check Blue America is donating. We’ll let you know if they decide to.
They should. It’s a slap in the face to progressives everywhere that they can’t find it in themselves to pony up this money.
John McCain spoke to staff and advisers working in the campaign War Room at the Minneapolis Hilton this afternoon, and forcefully vowed to fight hard to defend his running mate Sarah Palin against attacks from the media and Democrats. “They’re not doing right by our vice president, they’re not doing right by the American people,” McCain said, according to a source in the room. “We’re gonna fight back, we’re gonna get ’em.” McCain pounded his fist into his hand as he spoke, the source said, and made clear that he would be aggressively challenging those who are attacking Palin.
McCain advisers expect that he will address the issue in his speech to the convention tomorrow evening. McCain’s campaign has increasingly turned its sights on the media in recent days as journalists continue to probe Palin’s personal life and discuss her performance as a mother. McCain is personally offended by the controversy.
Earlier Wednesday, campaign chief Steve Schmidt blasted the media for its treatment of Palin. “Governor Sarah Palin is an exceptional governor with a record of accomplishment that exceeds, by far, the governing accomplishments of Senator Obama,” Schmidt said it a statement. He added: “This vetting controversy is a faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States who has never been a part of the old boys’ network that has come to dominate the news establishment in this country.”
And late Wednesday afternoon, Schmidt made a second statement threatening legal action against the National Enquirer for its report that Palin had an extramarital affair.
“The smearing of the Palin family must end. The allegations contained on the cover of the National Enquirer insinuating that Governor Palin had an extramarital affair are categorically false. It is a vicious lie. Governor Palin is the most popular governor in the country. She is a proven leader, an accomplished executive, a champion for ethics reform, and a fighter against corruption. The efforts of the media and tabloids to destroy this fine and accomplished public servant are a disgrace. The American people will reject it.
Senator McCain and Governor Palin look forward to discussing the issues that Americans care about, fixing broken government, creating jobs, making our country energy independent and securing the peace for the next generation by bringing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a victorious end. Legal action will be considered with regard to this disgraceful smear.
So the campaign itself is now stoking this by bringing up this extramarital affair thing. I hadn’t heard about it. They have decided to double down on Jay Rosen’s culture war scenario.
They’ve even managed to get the media questioning delegates on TV whether she has been treated fairly … by the media.
It’s obvious to me that McCain picked Palin because she is a conservative Christian who could rally the base and activate the GOTV operation that Rove built while being vaguely sellable as a “reform” maverick to the media and possibly a few independents.(He reportedly wanted Lieberman and was told that Lieb couldn’t bring in the Christians because of his pro-choice record, so he had to go to the D-List.) They see this as a close election that requires a base strategy. The Christian right loves Palin and are feeling their oats big time that they wielded enough clout to force a choice like this and it’s quite an achievement when you think about it. (If only progressives had that kind of clout…)
But it’s as much of a gamble for them as it is for McCain as Steven Waldman points out in this piece on beliefnet.
Sarah Palin: A Big Gamble for Religious Conservatives
It’s been a long time since religious conservatives have been this elated about anyone. They raised Sarah Palin’s choice immediately and rallied rapidly to her defense when news broke that her unmarried, teenage daughter is pregnant.
After a year’s worth of stories about whether the religious right was “dead,” they now seem to be flexing great muscle, helping to bring about the most antiabortion ticket running on the most antiabortion platform – ever.
But there’s something else going on here, and it has at least one Christian leader worried. Mark DeMoss, former chief of staff to Jerry Falwell and now a leading Christian public relations executive, is hoping that Palin turns out well but has been shocked and worried by the reflexive Christian embrace of her.
“Too many evangelicals and religious conservative are too preoccupied with values and faith and pay no attention to competence. We don’t apply this approach to anything else in life, including choosing a pastor.” Imagine, he said, if a church was searching for a pastor and the leadership was brought a candidate with great values but little experience. “They’ve been a pastor for two years at a church with 150 people but he shares our values, so we hired him to be pastor of our 5,000 person church? It wouldn’t happen! We don’t say, ‘He shares our values, so let’s hire him.’ That’s absurd. Yet we apply that to choosing presidents. It blows my mind.”
A Matter of Validation
Why does this happen? In part, it’s about validation. Christians in America feel that national leaders and mainstream media hold them in contempt, so having a real evangelical in power tells the world, “we must not be as crazy as people think we are,” DeMoss explains. He refers to the “Yellow Pages mentality” among some Christians: a reference to the idea that some churches publish directories of Christian-run businesses so that other Christians can only patronize them.
To be clear, DeMoss isn’t saying Palin is unqualified. “The reality is, we don’t know – and neither does McCain if he only met her once.” The other Christian leaders who rallied around her didn’t know much either. “I’m not hinting something’s amiss but we don’t know her and the people who gave her glowing response Friday didn’t know. The euphoric rush to anoint without knowing — it’s a dangerous thing.”
There’s one more dynamic that may play out. The more Palin is criticized, the more Christians will come to her defense. That’s especially true if critics mock her religion, but almost any attacks on her may enrage Christians. In 2004, one of the techniques the Bush campaign used to rally Christians was to portray him as a man of faith being mocked by liberals and the mainstream media. That just made him seem persecuted, and therefore more Christ-like.
A Comparison to Hillary Clinton
We’ve already seen that on the gender issue. McCain adviser Carly Fiorina said she was appalled by the Obama campaign’s attempts to “belittle Gov. Sarah Palin’s experience…. Because of Hillary Clinton ‘s historic run for the presidency and the treatment she received, American women are more highly tuned than ever to recognize and decry sexism in all its forms. They will not tolerate sexist treatment of Gov. Palin.”
Watch soon for Christians to cast criticism of Palin as being anti-Christian.
There are several possible risks to evangelicals of having embraced her so rapidly. It’s clear that appealing to religious conservatives was key factor for McCain, so if Palin ends up sinking the ticket, religious conservative leaders will be blamed. They’ll lose face within the party and also among rank-and-file evangelicals who might reasonably have expected that their leaders checked out Palin before endorsing her.
Of course, if Palin turns out to be a great national hero, religious conservatives will look not only powerful but also sage. In short, just as John McCain took a big risk with this selection, religious leaders have gambled their credibility on the same bet.
Who knew that the Conservative Christians were such “throw the dice” kind of people? Maybe they have more in common with McCain than they realize.
It’s very difficult to know how the Jerry Springer stuff is going to play out. It’s never a “good” thing for a politician to have the media drooling and licking their chops over their personal life, but they often not only survive but thrive as a result, depending on the transgression. Edwards betrayed his cancer stricken wife and that’s just too much for most people to bear. Clinton had a few furtive sexual encounters that were exploited by his political enemies which ended up gaining most people’s sympathies. You don’t know where these scandals will go, but you do know that they will distract from the normal coverage of issues and policy. (That, of course, would suit McCain just fine. The last thing he wants is for this campaign to be about issues.)
So, I still don’t know about the effect of Sarah Palin. A lot of this is untrod ground, with her being a female with young kids and a very conservative Christian to boot. Anybody who says they can completely predict the outcome of this “scandal” is fooling herself. This is new territory.
Waldman’s article bolsters my opinion that Palin is highly unlikely to be dropped from the ticket short of something truly catastrophic. The Religious Right has a strong hold on the GOP and they just won’t stand for it, particularly now that they’ve been catered to. The question is whether Palin will, on balance, keep the base of the GOP together to fight the cruel liberals and their partners in crime, the hostile liberal media, who they portray as being condescending and elitist toward all conservatives.
I don’t have the answer, but I do know that this kind of thing is often more complicated than people think. The instincts that make us gloat over the headlines on the new issue of US Magazine, may not have the desired result. As much as McCain says “celebrity” is something to condemn, in America of 2008, we know that isn’t true. This is the land of average folks becoming “stars” on reality TV.
Palin could become the winner of America’s Working Mom from all this — at least to those who don’t know enough about politics to realize that she wants her church and the government to be our “Dad.” If you haven’t read Nixonland, you won’t understand it when I say that it’s possible that Palin could end up being the orthogonian Joan of Arc. That’s certainly what the Conservative Christians are gambling on.
*And no I’m not “worrying” too much. I’m making a counter argument about this feeding frenzy that people should consider. I don’t know if it’s right. I’m often wrong. But I’m also not a mindless cheerleader and I can see land mines in all this which may not detonate, but which should not be ignored. Palin’s candidacy, like Clinton’s and Obama’s is not like any other candidacy we’ve seen and it brings with it some new factors. (I don’t think we’ve contemplated having a female president with an infant before, even in the movies, much less one who wants to take away a similarly situated woman’s right to choose not to have it.)
I would just add this. The Democrats could conceivably make this pay off with lots of chatter about hypocrisy and teen pregnancy (sorry Tris.) But I doubt it. If the shoe were on the other foot, I think the Republicans could force Palin off the ticket. But if you are going to play this game like Republicans, you’d better learn how to play it right. Pointing out hypocrisy, which, when it comes to personal issues,most people practice without a second thought, isn’t going to get it done. It takes and finesse in equal measure, not
Are Dems this good at this particular kind of politics?
In 1952, Nixon used the word “traitor” to describe Dean Acheson, Adlai Stevenson, and Harry Truman. Outrageous!, Democrats responded. Whatever do you mean?, Nixon said in wounded tones, claiming he’d been misunderstood; he only meant they were “traitors to the high principles in which many of the nation’s Democrats believe.” Today, it’s obvious that he meant to suggest, you know, the crime of treason.
The bonus: His charge also revealed liberals as shrieking and hypersensitive. That’s the problem with FNB politics, and Reagan showed it better than anyone. He used to make jokes: About Africans, “When they have a man for lunch, they really have him for lunch.” So, when gubernatorial candidate Pat Brown distributed a pamphlet (“Ronald Reagan, Extremist Collaborator—An Exposé”) of such quotations in 1966, it backfired. Reagan was making a joke! Why are these liberals so humorless?
John McCain’s convention gambit calls for culture war around the Sarah Palin pick. And now the Politico is reporting just that: Palin reignites culture wars. An option is forming. This is my attempt to describe it before her big speech in St. Paul.
“She’s from a small town, with small-town values — but apparently, that’s not good enough for some of the folks out there attacking her and her family. Some Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Washington talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit.” —Fred Thompson addressing the Republican convention, Sep. 2 2008.
John McCain’s convention gambit is a culture war strategy. It depends for its execution on conflict with journalists, and with bloggers (the “angry left,” Bush called them) along with confusion between and among the press, the blogosphere, and the Democratic party. It revives cultural memory: the resentment narrative after Chicago ‘68 but with the angry left more distributed. It dispenses with issues and seeks a trial of personalities. It bets big time on backlash.
After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation — “SP” — Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.
According to Passage House’s web site, its purpose is to provide “young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives” and help teen moms “become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families.”
As for St. John McCain:
Earlier today the Associated Press reported that Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, opposed funding to prevent teen pregnancies, a position that Palin also took as governor. “The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support,” she wrote in a 2006 questionnaire distributed among gubernatorial candidates.
Reporters asked McCain in November 2007 whether he supported grants for sex education in the United States, whether such programs should include directions for using contraceptives and whether he supports President Bush’s policy of promoting abstinence.
“Ahhh, I think I support the president’s policy,” McCain said.
HANNITY: Let’s talk a little bit about the vice presidential choice, Sarah Palin, and your thoughts on her. I can tell you every person that I have met here — there is an energy. Conservatives, they love her. And there have been numerous attacks by different liberal organizations — National Organization for Women and some others against her. How do you think they’re going to stand up?
MATALIN: Well, you know that there were — the Democrats are worried by this choice, because they don’t know how to attack her. They’ve tried every which way. They’ve tried the kitchen sink, but all it’s done is revealed their elitism, their sexism, their hypocrisy. They’re not going to make it stick. And it’s not just about conservatives, although that’s a big chunk of it and her position on life, and the obvious talking the talk, not just walking the walk. It’s regular mainstream women who’ve prioritized their families, but wanting to have good jobs, don’t want to be overtaxed, get the energy issue.
HANNITY: We’re running out of time, but they tried to make the attack that she has a young daughter, pregnant and engaged. Is that fair that they would attack that? I mean, I don’t remember Chelsea Clinton being attacked. I don’t remember Al Gore’s children being attacked. I thought there was a general rule that children of candidates ought to be left alone. And Alan knows I’ve said that many times.
Well now, let’s think about that shall we? I’m pretty sure that Mary’s pal Rush had some not so nice things to say about Chelsea Clinton on television. So did John McCain.
In fact, before the right gets too self righteous about how cruel the Democrats are for “going after” Palin’s daughter (which the Obama campaign is rightly not having any part of and neither am I) perhaps they need to be reminded about what a lovely person their maverick hero was during his last campaign for president — and how the so-called liberal media covered up for him:
Earlier this month, at a Republican Senate fund-raiser, McCain told a downright nasty joke making fun of Janet Reno, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton.
The fact that McCain had made the tasteless joke was reported in major newspapers, as was the vain attempt by his press secretary to initially deny what McCain had done. But in several major newspapers, the joke itself was kept a secret. When McCain subsequently apologized to President Clinton, the Washington Post, in its personality section, noted the apology but said the joke “was too vicious to print.”
The Los Angeles Times, in its Life & Style section, provided an oblique rendering of the joke that did not fully convey its ugliness. When Maureen Dowd penned a column in the New York Times about the joke, she wrote that McCain “is so revered by the press that his disgusting jape was largely nudged under the rug.” But Dowd chose not to relay the joke, either.
The joke did appear in McCain’s hometown paper, the Arizona Republic, and the Associated Press did report the joke in full, so everyone in the press had access to McCain’s words. But by censoring themselves, the Post, the Times and others helped McCain deflect flak and preserved his status as a Republican presidential contender.
Salon feels its readers deserve the unadulterated truth. Though no tape of McCain’s quip has yet emerged, this is what he reportedly said:
“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”
McCain’s made a lot of hilarious “jokes” like that, some of this even in this campaign. It behooves the Republicans not to get too full of themselves on this stuff or it may backfire in their faces. Their standard bearer is a nasty piece of work.
Overall, best estimates indicate that adolescent childbearing coupled with the other disadvantages faced by adolescent mothers costs U.S. taxpayers a total of $13 to $19 billion annually.
The factors contributing to teen pregnancy and childbirth include lack of close contact with adult role models; peer pressure; family poverty; the perception among many teens that few opportunities for success are available; and inadequate sex education, especially about contraception and family planning (Sidel 1998). Girls who have a positive self-image, high expectations and aspirations for the future, and good relationships with their parents are much less likely to get pregnant than others. The United States has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the world, with 53 births per 1,000 women aged nineteen and younger compared to countries at the lower end of the spectrum such as Denmark (nine births per 1,000), Netherlands (six births per 1,000), and Japan (four births per 1,000). Worldwide adolescents give birth to over 14 million children annually.
…findings show that parent-child connectedness, parental supervision, monitoring, or regulation of children’s activities, and parents’ values against teen intercourse or unprotected intercourse decrease the risk of adolescent pregnancy.
Adolescent mothers are less likely to complete high school, avoid welfare, be employed, have stable employment, and earn adequate incomes. Longitudinal research shows that for many adolescent mothers, some of these negative consequences may be short term, as many are able to eventually complete school and become economically self-sufficient. However, they are likely to experience numerous stressful life events, adverse family functioning, and low levels of life satisfaction.
In some cases, an adolescent mother may assume less responsibility for the care of her child, leaving an already overburdened grandmother in charge. As the grandmother’s stress increases, the quality of the care she provides may diminish.
In an interview Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Giuliani was asked, “If she were the president on 9/11, you would have been confident?”
Giuliani responded: “I’d be confident that she’d be able to handle it. She’s been a governor of a state, she’s been mayor of a city.”
And now you know the true extent of the contempt with which Republicans treat this country’s citizens: they think we’re all as dumb as their base.
Giuliani actually expects Americans to believe that the experience of running the City of Wasilla, Alaska with a population estimated to be under 6,000 in 2003, is comparable to being mayor of New York City, NY, “the largest city in the United States, with its metropolitan area ranking among the largest urban areas in the world.” with “an estimated population of 8,274,527 residents.”
BTW, was Giuliani challenged on his preposterous, ridiculous, insane claim by the interviewer on ABC? Dream on.
“Joe Lieberman ought to be ashamed of himself for some of the things he said tonight, not as a Democrat but as an American,” adviser Robert Gibbs said on “Larry King Live.” …
“In the Senate, [Obama] has not reached across party lines to get anything significant done, nor has he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party,” Lieberman said in his speech.
Gibbs stressed that it was a “flat-out lie” that Obama hasn’t reached across party lines during his time in public office. Gibbs cited Obama’s work with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists and with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, on the government budget.
Gibbs blamed what he called lies like those perpetrated in Lieberman’s speech for disillusioning voters and making them cynical of the government.
“I think [Lieberman] owes it to the American people to look into the camera and tell them the truth,” Gibbs said…
Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement that the convention speeches also showed how out of touch the McCain campaign and Republicans are with the American people, neglecting to talk about one of the country’s biggest problems: the economy.
Once again, we face the problem:
How do you counter bald-faced lying when the press feels it has more of an obligation to repeat the lie than investigate and debunk the lie?