The Real Trouble With John McCain's Ads

Amazingly, the latest polls so far show a virtual dead heat in the presidential race, not yet reflecting any bounce from the convention for the Democratic ticket so far as a result of their week to make their case to the voters. Until the Republicans have their chance to run their convention to state their case, they are relying on some ads that really don't take too much thought to totally dismiss.

One such silly McCain ad features a Hillary Clinton backer who now claims support for John McCain. Well, that certainly makes no sense, as the voting records of John McCain and Hillary Clinton have very little in common. McCain has never been a big supporter of equal rights, civil rights, or equal pay for women. John McCain has a strong antiabortion voting record. Hillary Clinton is on the other side of this issue. And Hillary's Clinton's awesome convention speech could have made it more clear that John McCain doesn't share most of the values shared by Clinton and Obama, yet John McCain thinks that he has some valid case to attract the Hillary Clinton voters. Unless McCain is attempting to appeal to a few knotheads who would not give an African American candidate the same fair consideration as any other candidate running for office, then I really don't see whom McCain is attempting to attract. This ad doesn't take much thought to wholly dismiss.

Another silly McCain ad uses middle class images and language to lure these voters with some completely false and misleading claim that Obama will raise their taxes. In reality the Obama plan calls for a middle class tax cut and only raising taxes on those earning more than $250,000. If this McCain ad was subjected to the very same FTC standards as ads dealing with products, it would probably be pulled from the airwaves as false advertising. It doesn't take much thought to dismiss this ad as merely desperate and pathetic and an attempt to attract votes by using an obvious falsehood about raising taxes. It is an outright lie.

Perhaps the worst recent ad in support of McCain isn't even run directly by the McCain Campaign, but by the Republican Party in Texas. It claims that Barack Obama ignores a brother living on a dollar a day in Kenya in poverty. This ad is ghoulish and disgusting on so many levels. When Barack Obama was merely two years old, his father from Kenya divorced his White mother from Kansas, and young Barack Obama was raised by his maternal grandparents. Two year old Barack Obama only saw his father once more in his lifetime after the age of two before his father was killed in a 1982 automobile accident. He had no knowledge of the new life in Kenya his father lived by a new marriage to a woman from Kenya that Obama had never met until only in recent years. The woman in Kenya may legally be called his stepmother, although she never had any contact or ever raised Barack Obama during his lifetime. And a halfbrother of Obama's named George does live in Kenya, but Barack Obama didn't even know of his existence until only in very recent years. According to CNN, George Obama is angry at any claim that he lives in poverty in Kenya and is in fact a member of some community organizations that actually help those who are less fortunate in his community. The Republican Party of Texas ad for McCain attempts to capitalize on the tragic life of a two year old Barack Obama where divorce tore his family apart. Despite this tragic childhood, Barack Obama become a top student, attended law school, taught constitutional law as a professor, became a community organizer, became a state legislator and now may become president of the United States. Any the claim that his halfbrother, who Barack Obama never knew, is living in poverty is false. This ad in so offensive and wrong. It attempts to create a false scandal where none exists and exploit the tragic childhood of a two year old child's life after divorce for political gain. It's the worst of gutter politics. No political issues are discussed here, just a false character smear.

It is a real shame that John McCain who not that very long ago claimed that he would be honest with voters and use "Straight Talk" is being represented by TV by ads that promote outright lies and falsehoods against his election opponent. It's too bad when some longtime politician like a McCain wants to be elected so badly that he or his supporters will tell voters absolutely anything just to be elected. McCain did not want to even level with voters in how many homes he owned when asked, without first asking his advisers on what he should tell the voters for political reasons. It is a campaign of this sort that is characterized by so much intellectual dishonesty that the voters should soundly reject this old time corrupt politics of this type. Barack Obama's campaign is about opening the window and letting in some fresh air instead. McCain's old time politics is based on doing or telling voters anything regardless of whether it is true or not, because being elected is the main goal. Unless voters enjoy being lied to on a regular basis, they should reject all of this sort of politics. the McCain Campaign has certainly made truth the first victim of their lusts for political power. The next four years of a McCain government would be just like the last eight years of the Bush Administration where truth about Iraq and other vital issues has been very scarce indeed. Anyone like a John McCain who has made a real career out of breaking the Ten Commandments by "bearing false witness" against his opponents or betraying the trust of his first wife with an affair on the side has hardly earned the trust or the votes of the voters. McCain's own ads, most of which he has personally approved stand as exhibit "A" in this indictment of his character.